Rating: 
Summary: What did you do in the war, Daddy?
Review: Although I have been to Europe twice with my father as part of reunion groups I still wondered what happened on a day to day basis. As a unit arriving in the European theatre six months after D-Day they were still not battle tested until two weeks into the Battle of the Bulge. From this point, January 30, through the Palatinate, Central Europe, and to Passau into Czechoslovakia, he was constantly moving. We talked about the people and the land he crossed and I learned from other soldiers on those reunions the crisis and fatigue that was their daily life.Death Traps captured all those moments and much of the day to day decisions that went into the trek the armies made into Central Europe. Sgt. Bridgman served in the 133rd Ordnance Maintenance, retrieving and repairing tanks for the 11th Armored Division. Anyone wondering how an Armored soldier lived, survived, and then dealt with the aftermath of war will cherish Lt. Cooper's contribution. Belton Cooper's Naval architectural career is suspended by mobilization only to be applied when he field equips tanks with heavier armour when his units face the German Tiger tank. At that time my father was a young 21 driving a cigarette delivery truck in Detroit in 1942. By 1980, he retired as mid-level executive for General Motors. Ordnance Maintenance crafted the rest of his life as a skilled technical person and as a leader of people. Belton Cooper recaptures his life in those times and I find a reflection of many lives from his generations. This book becomes a part of my family's heritage that will be shared with my children and their children.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent, refreshing look at armored warfare of WW II.
Review: An outstanding book, and a refreshing look at WW II. Belton Cooper has provided us with a refreshing new look at the classic armored warfare of WW II in Western Europe. As a junior ordnance (maintenance officer) with the 3rd Armored Division "Spearhead", 1LT Cooper had a tremendous vantage point. His duties required him to spend his days immediately behind the front line battle coordinating repairs and accounting for combat losses. He spent his nights driving through potentially enemy territory to the Division's Maintenance Battalion in the rear to locate replacement vehicles, repaired vehicles and crews. Although not a front line soldier, 1LT Cooper was frequently in the thick of battle with the 3rd AD and or running a gauntlet of sniper fire and artillery in his jeep. He clearly details how armored vehicle recovery and maintenance was performed either at the front or in the rear. Of particular interest to me was his description of the Ordnance Corps' role in training the replacement tank crews, and essentially commanding these vehicles and crews until they were turned over to the combat units at the front. This practice is what we today call Weapons System Replacement Operations. He also describes other logistical efforts in supplying a fast moving armored division with fuel and ammunition. Most importantly, Cooper describes the shortcomings of the American M4 Sherman Tank. The M4 was outgunned by and insufficiently armored in comparison to the German Mark IV, V and VI tanks it faced. Cooper describes in excellent detail the 3rd Armored Division's use of combined arms and air power to compensate for the M4's weaknesses. Cooper weaves his tale in a style similar to Stephen Ambrose's style with one exception. Where Ambrose describes the war from many common men's viewpoints, "Death Traps" is one common man's viewpoint. It is full of poignant stories, of American soldiers, German soldiers as well as the French, Belgian and German civilians he encountered. "Death Traps" is an excellent book and shows another side of World War II. If you are looking for a new perspective on World War II in Europe, 1944-45, "Death Traps" is the book for you. This is a must read for any professional soldier or military historian.
Rating: 
Summary: An enjoyable and informative read.
Review: As one can probably surmise from its title, Death Traps is first and foremost an indictment of the M4 Sherman's performance in WWII. While Cooper's obvious disdain for the M4 is perhaps a bit unfair at times, his criticisms of the tank's limitations are generally well taken and his first-hand experiences certainly lend a great deal of credibility to his observations.
Cooper's narrative does an admirable job of blending personal anecdotes with a reasonably comprehensive treatment of the 3rd Armored Division's role in the war, thus making for a read that is both enjoyable and informative. The author comes across as very pleasant and knowledgeable and yet avoids the temptation to either pat himself on the back too much or preach to the reader. Perhaps most helpful is Cooper's thorough analysis and detailed description of U.S. artillery tactics. One is certainly left with the impression that but for the excellence of U.S. artillery and our domination of the skies, the German tank forces would have exacted an even more terrible toll on our troops than they did.
My major criticism of Death Traps is its lack of maps. With the exception of a few crude, hand drawn sketches, no maps of the battle fields discussed are provided. As an amateur historian / WWII afficionado, the inclusion of maps of the locations described in a book of this sort are always helpful tools. A secondary and much lesser criticism is Cooper's tendency to occasionally be repetitive in his summarization of his central theme. Still, I would enthusiastically recommend this book to anyone interested in the subject matter.
Rating: 
Summary: Well-written, room for improvement
Review: As the other reviews indicate, the book is well-written, and offers insights not only on tank repair and crew training, but also on the strengths of the different tanks involved in World War II, and how that affected the course and tactics of the war. In that sense this is a valuable book.
Yet the book is unnecessarily confusing, in a way that could have been easily corrected, for a book that's intended for a mass market. The author frequently switches designations for the tanks involved, forcing the reader to keep in mind that a "Sherman" is the same as a "M4," which we must remember is quite different from the "Mark IV," sometimes referred to as the "Panther" or "PzKw IV."
While the physical differences and armor depth of the different parts of the different tanks are explained in text at length, there are _no_ diagrams or photos with legend to explain what the author is referring to. The author may be safe in assuming the readers know what a turret is, but he also frequently refers to the "glacis plate," and other tank parts, apparently assuming everyone knows what they are and where they are located. The author repeatedly refers to the importance of obtaining a wrecked tank's "'W' number," but feels no need to tell us where it was located.
Likewise, the book contains three hand-drawn maps, not referenced to the text. More and better maps, better coordinated with the text, would be helpful to those of us not intimately familiar with World War II European geography. Further, the appendices could have been profitably integrated into the text -- perhaps in the introduction.
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Summary: Armored Ordnance officer gives a bad review of US tanks
Review: Belton Cooper was an officer in the 3rd Armored Division, which fought its way across France and Germany in 1944-45. His job in the division was taking refurbished tanks from the repair depot to the front-line units of one Combat Command, and locating and recovering the tanks that had been knocked out. He tells you that his division, and his combat command in that division, had seen more combat than any other armored unit in the U.S. Army, and then tells you that he thinks he's seen more knocked out American tanks than any other person living. It's a believable claim. The book has a great deal going for it. There are a number of descriptions of armored combat at the close tactical level from the last year of the war. The illustration section has some very interesting photos, including one sequence where a Pershing tank duels with a Panther, and knocks it out. In the last photo you can see the Panther's crew bailing out. There's also a good deal of information on various American tanks. Cooper hates all of them, though he thinks the Pershing was better than the previous ones. He was involved in the deployment of a SuperPershing in the last days of the war, a tank which had a better gun and extra armor on it, and he tells you of the problems that they had with it, and it's fate. I would highly recommend this book if you're an enthusiast of WW2 or armored combat, because it's well-written and very informative. It's not War and Peace or anything, but it is full of information, and reads reasonably well.
Rating:
Summary: Good anecdotes, so-so perspective
Review: Belton Cooper's "Death Traps" is an excellent book when it sticks to first-hand stories about the 3rd Armored Division in World War II, but somewhat below average when it discusses the larger aspects of the war.
For instance, the stories of how to clean and repair a Sherman tank and get it back into battle are great fodder for any armor fan or model builder. Describing some tank damage: "The projectile penetrated the [M4] armor, passed through about a foot of fifty-weight oil, severed a five-and-a-half inch steel drive shaft, then passed through another eight to ten inches of oil and a one-inch arored back plate before entering the driver's compartment. By this time the shell has spent itself and nester between the driver's feet under his seat." Absolutely riveting stuff for any tank lover. The book is chock full of knocking out tanks, describing the detailed damage, and how the tanks were cleaned up and returned to the field.
Similarly, the stories of running liason reports from the front to the rear lines under constant danger, fabricating hedgerow choppers, dealing with Belgian mademoiselles, using a T2 recovery vehicle to recover dead cows, or watching P-47s bomb the enemy are full of detail and poignancy that any W.W. II researcher would love. The difficulty of keeping armor and trucks running with lots of excellent detail right down to the number of spark plugs needed in the early Wright powered Shermans (18) and the number of miles for the engine of a GMC "deuce and a half" 2.5 ton truck (10,000). If muzzle velocities and armor thicknesses interest you, you get plenty of this detail.
However, some of the broader statements and the overall strategic analysis of the war are somewhat less insightful. I was surprised that his section on discovering the death camp at Nordhausen only merited two and a half pages. At times, the strategic view of the war is missing. Very few maps and diagrams of the movements of the 3rd AD. And finally, there is quite a bit of repetition. Over and over, he states the same problems with the M4 and the greatness of the M26. The greatness of the Panther and Tiger. OK, once or twice is enough.
Overall the writing style is direct and easy to read. Chapters are divided into smaller sections. Each anecdote invites you to read the next, and turn a few more pages. So, despite some shortcomings, if you like the detail and close up view of the tanker's war in W.W. II, this is an excellent personal combat diary.
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Account of Armored Combat in the ETO
Review: Belton Cooper's description of the inadequacies of the M4 Sherman Tank and the superhuman efforts of maintenance crews to restore damaged ones to combat is very gripping. His book reflects his frustrations at having to send young, undertrained tank crews out to almost certain death in the face of Mark IV, Mark V and Mark VI German tanks. The author spares no criticism in his description of George S. Patton's recommendation to empasize manufacturing of the M4 Sherman over the M26 Pershing tank. Patton could not have been more wrong. "Death Traps" is about survival and resourcefulness in the face of brutal conditions. This book is a must read for anyone interested in America's armored forces in WW2.
Rating:
Summary: A Significant Collection of Ground Level Retrospectives
Review: Belton Cooper's story embodies the "GI Joe" Perspective. His candor, though somewhat biased at times, is to be admired. Mr. Cooper advises the reader that his recollections and opinions are basically his own. Mr. Cooper provides a number of insightful and heroic tales equal in breadth to Martin Middlebrook's "Arnhem 1944" The near tragic counter battery incident and massacre of American bombers were two of the best ground level stories available to the general public in recent years. The book is quite a valuable reference tool for the serious military historian. The only significant criticism is directed towards the editing. The publisher should have assisted Mr. Cooper (who is admirably a first time writer) perhaps in better organizing tactical reference maps and explaining army corp level operations. The publisher, like many others in the past, egregiously misidentifies photographs. For example, General Maurice Rose was not killed in action on March 30, 1944. Third Armor wasn't even on the continent at the time.
Rating:
Summary: The "Good War" wasn't. (Apologies to Mr. Studs Terkel...)
Review: Belton Y. Cooper was an ordnance officer with the 3d Armored Division in W.W. II, where his unit's central task lay in the the immediate, post-battle recovery of those knocked-out M4 Sherman's which could be repaired in the field, and the marking for the salvage teams of those 'brewed-up' M4s -- tanker speak for catastrophic battle damage resulting in fire -- which could not. Thus, Cooper bore witness to the terrible consequences of the Sherman's late-war obsolescence when faced against the Wermacht's vastly superior tanks, and the resulting tragic and disgraceful cost in American lives. ('Disgraceful', for the proposition of fielding the superbly designed M26 Pershing in large numbers well before Operation Overlord (D-Day) was foolishly rejected on the basis of the recommendations of no less an Allied general than George Patton, in late '43/early '44.) Every bit as powerful as E.B. Sledge's memoir of his experience as a Marine in the Pacific War, ("With the Old Breed"), what lend's Cooper's book such a visceral power is his most unself-conscious and rigorous honesty in recounting his war. Like Sledge, he is obviously a very perceptive and humane individual, who trusts that each anecdote which he has judged to be most illustrative of the urgency and horror of the events which surrounded him in '44-'45, will strike home to the reader with a poignancy borne of his refusal to indulge in any of the petty embellishments which ultimately weaken the impact of the memoirs of lesser writers. Brutal honesty in a literal sense...
Rating: 
Summary: A Faulty Indictment
Review: Death Traps, a poorly written memoir by Belton Y. Cooper promises much, but delivers little. Cooper served as an ordnance lieutenant in the 3rd Armor Division (3AD), acting as a liaison officer between the Combat Commands and the Division Maintenance Battalion. One of the first rules of memoir writing is to focus on events of which the author has direct experience; instead, Cooper is constantly discussing high-level or distant events of which he was not a witness. Consequently, the book is riddled with mistakes and falsehoods. Furthermore, the author puts his main effort into an over-simplified indictment of the American Sherman tank as a "death trap" that delayed eventual victory in the Second World War. Cooper's indictment of the Sherman tank's inferiority compared to the heavier German Panther and Tiger tanks ignores many important facts. First, the Sherman was designed for mass production and this allowed the Allies to enjoy a 4-1 superiority in numbers. Second, fewer than 50% of the German armor in France in 1944 were Tigers or Panthers. Third, if the German tanks were as deadly as Cooper claims, why did the Germans lose 1,500 tanks in Normandy against about 1,700 Allied tanks? Indeed, Cooper claims that the 3AD lost 648 Shermans in the war, but the division claimed to have destroyed 1,023 German tanks. Clearly, there was no great kill-ratio in the German favor, and the Allies could afford to trade tank-for-tank. Finally, if the Sherman was such a "death trap," why did the US Army use it later in Korea or the Israelis use it in the 1967 War? There are a great number of mistakes in this book, beginning with Cooper's ridiculous claim that General Patton was responsible for delaying the M-26 heavy tank program. Cooper claims that Patton was at a tank demonstration at Tidworth Downs in January 1944 and that, "Patton...insisted that we should downgrade the M26 heavy tank and concentrate on the M4....This turned out to be one of the most disastrous decisions of World War II, and its effect upon the upcoming battle for Western Europe was catastrophic." Actually, Patton was in Algiers and Italy for most of January 1944, only arriving back in Scotland on 26 January. In fact, it was General McNair of Ground Forces Command, back in the US, who delayed the M-26 program. Cooper sees the M-26 as the panacea for all the US Army's shortcomings and even claims that the American offensive in November 1944, "would have succeeded if we had had the Pershing" and the resulting American breakthrough could have forestalled the Ardennes offensive and "the war could have ended five months earlier." This is just sheer nonsense and ignores the logistical and weather problems that doomed that offensive. Cooper continually discusses events he did not witness and in fact, only about one-third of the book covers his own experiences. Instead of discussing maintenance operations in detail, Cooper opines about everything from U-Boats, to V-2 rockets, to strategic bombing, to the July 20th Plot. He falsely states that, "the British had secured a model of the German enigma decoding machine and were using it to decode German messages." Cooper writes, "not until July 25, the night before the Saint-Lo breakthrough, was Rommel able to secure the release of the panzer divisions in reserve in the Pas de Clais area." Actually, Rommel was wounded on 17 July and in a hospital on July 25th. In another chapter, Cooper writes that, "the British had bombed the city [Darmstadt] during a night raid in February," and "more than 40,000 died in this inferno." Actually, the RAF bombed Darmstadt on 11 September 1944, killing about 12,000. Dresden was bombed on 13 February 1945, killing about 40,000. Obviously, the author has confused cities and raids. Even where Cooper is dealing with issues closer to his own experience, he tends to exaggerate or deliver incorrect information. He describes the VII Corps as an "armor corps," but it was not. Cooper's description of a counterattack by the German Panzer Lehr division is totally inaccurate; he states that, "July 11 became one of the most critical in the battle of Normandy. The Germans launched a massive counterattack along the Saint-Lo- Saint Jean de Daye highway..." In fact, one under strength German division attacked three US divisions. The Americans lost only 100 casualties, while the Germans suffered 25% armor losses. The Official history calls this attack "a dismal and costly failure." Cooper wrote that, "Combat Command A...put up a terrific defense in the vicinity of Saint Jean de Daye..." but actually it was CCB, since CCA in reserve. On another occasion, Cooper claims that his unit received the 60,000th Sherman produced, but official records indicate that only 49,234 of all models were built. Cooper claims that the 3rd Armored Division had 17,000 soldiers, but the authorized strength was about 14,500. Can't this guy remember anything correctly? Cooper's description of the death of MGN Rose is virtually plagiarized from the official history and a number of articles in ARMOR magazine in the past decade reveal that Rose was an extreme risk-taker. Reading "Death Traps," the uninitiated may actually believe that the US Army was badly defeated in Europe. Cooper even claims that, as the 3rd Armored Division approached the Elbe River in the last days of the war that, "with our division spread out and opposed by three new divisions, our situation was critical." If anybody's situation was critical in April 1945, it was Germany's. Actually, the 3rd Armored Division had one key weakness not noted by Cooper, namely the shortage of infantry. The division had a poor ratio of 2:1 between tanks and infantry, and this deficiency often required the 3AD to borrow an infantry RCT from other units. While the much-maligned Sherman tank was far from perfect, it did the job it was designed for, a fact that is missed by this author.
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