Smoyer's tank won that confrontation, and that was the end of the battle. The Germans were fighting to the death and Smoyer's tank faced off against a German tank parked right in front of the city's cathedral. The centerpiece of their story is the fight for the German city Cologne in March 1945 in the final months of the war. Smoyer and his tank crew fought their way across Europe after landing in France three weeks after D-Day in 1944. In two years of fighting, he took out five German tanks - an extraordinary total for one tank gunner. That often made the difference in a tank duel. Smoyer had a simple motto: "Shoot fast and shoot straight." Clarence Smoyer (top middle, no helmet) sits with fellow tank crew members in Cologne, Germany, in 1945.
Makos says Smoyer saved the lives of his crew members and those in other tanks because he was such a great shot. People lined the street outside Smoyer's hotel as he rode proudly to the USS Constitution Museum, where he and the author signed copies of "Spearhead."ĭuring World War II, Smoyer says he sat in a seat inside and kept close watch for targets while another soldier drove. Makos says he planned the surprise tank ride in Boston because of the city's patriotic history and the sense that people would respond if they found out about the event. Adam Makos, an author of books about military history - including one about Thomas Hudner, a Navy pilot from Fall River, Massachusetts - tells Smoyer's story in his new book " Spearhead: An American Tank Gunner, His Enemy, and a Collision of Lives in World War II." He had gotten a tip that Smoyer was living in obscurity and "not even his neighbors knew what he did in the war."
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