Death Traps : The Survival of an American Armored Division in World War II

Rating:
Summary: interesting account, but inaccurate and lacking in insight
Review: The good part about this book is that it is an easy read and it does serve as an eyewitness account of the important role played by the tank retrieval and repair units of the U.S. Army during World War II.

Unfortunately, the author, Belton Cooper, misfires with the central thesis of his book, which is essentially one long diatribe against the inferior quality of US tanks in WWII.

At the heart of Belton Cooper's diatribe are several kernels of truth:

1. US tank casualties in Europe in WWII were appallingly high.
2. The M4 Sherman tank (and US tank destroyers) had a difficult time fighting the German Panther and Tiger tanks.
3. Development of the M26 Pershing, a tank with more armor and firepower than the M4 Sherman, was delayed by objections from Army Ground Forces (AGF).

Cooper unfortunately mashes these three truths together into a single simplistic and hyperbolic scenario that goes something like this: "Tank losses were extremely high because our tanks were vastly inferior to German tanks. The war in Europe would have ended much sooner had the M26 Pershing been available in large quantities, but the M26 was delayed because of the arrogance of a few US Generals, Patton being the chief culprit."

Patton did not make this decision. Objections to the M26 came because the AGF had fixed upon the doctrine of using the lightly armored and open-turreted tank destroyers for the task of taking on enemy tanks. Most historians blame Lt. Gen. Leslie McNair, the head of AGF, for this unfortunate decision. There were many reasons for this decision, too many to discuss in this review, but Cooper does not even mention the existence of the tank destroyer doctrine in this book.

The decision to make the M4 Sherman the main tank of the US Army did not come out of a false sense of arrogance, as Cooper claims. All three of the major tank armies made similar decisions to continue production for the duration of the war those tanks that had so far proven themselves in combat - these were the German Pzkfw IV, the Russian T34, and the US M4 Sherman. These were proven designs that already had a manufacturing and support base. All three tanks were upgraded and would stay roughly equivalent in capability. Cooper fails to mention almost all of the upgrades to the Sherman (e.g., "wet storage" and the 76mm HVAPC round), which made it both more survivable and lethal as the war progressed.

The big difference was that, unlike the US, the German Army was convinced of the need for tank supremacy, and Hitler took a personal interest in ensuring that this would occur. And so at huge cost, the Tiger and Panther tanks were also built (the Tiger I was eight times more expensive than the Pzkfw IV).

Tank casualties in all of the armies of Europe in WWII were high. A key bit of insight missing from this book is the fact that tanks, originally conceived as breakthrough weapons against static defenses, had by 1944 become highly vulnerable when attacking well defended positions alone, without artillery or air support. Anti-tank weapons had advanced tremendously, and any tank could be destroyed if adequately targeted - it was also thus not necessary to have tank supremacy to destroy superior tanks.

So, the enormous labor and expense that Germany went through to ensure tank supremacy with the Tiger and Panther tanks would prove to have only limited tactical value - tanks could not win the war by themselves. The US and Britain went for air supremacy instead, and were the only countries to utilize strategic bombers in WWII, which did eventually win the war. Because ultimately, the single most important factor that hastened the defeat of Germany was Allied bombing of Germany's synthetic fuel plants between May and September 1944 (Albert Speer himself said so). From that point on, Germany's ability to field a modern mechanized army declined rapidly. By January 1945, the German Army was out of fuel for its tanks. Both at the Battle of the Bulge on the Western Front, and at the Vistula River on the Eastern Front, the "vastly superior" German tanks would be overrun or abandoned, out of fuel.

And so, contrary to Cooper's thesis, if anything could have ended the war earlier, it would have been an earlier targeting of these synthetic fuel plants, not the mere introduction of a better tank like the M26. Twice as expensive as an M10, the M26 was not invincible, nor was it superior to the Panther and Tiger tanks.

There are many other books that give a more accurate history of tank warfare in WWII. "Sledgehammers" by Christopher Wilbeck is one of the best books at demythologizing the Tiger tank. Thomas Jentz's books on the Panther and Tiger tanks also give a good picture of the mechanical difficulties of these tanks (among other things, they leaked gasoline and so burned easily). Jentz's Panther book has the results of ballistic tests done by the Germans which show that the Sherman was not as helpless, and the Panther not as invincible as Cooper's book might lead you to believe. George Forty's "United States Tanks of World War II" and Steven Zaloga's many books on the M4, M26, and the tank destroyers give a much better account of the controversy surrounding the development of these AFVs. Dmitriy Loza's "Commanding the Red Army's Sherman Tanks" gives a wholly positive assessment of the M4 relative to the T34. "Steel Victory" by Harry Yeide is a collection of combat tales of the M4 Sherman tank, demonstrating its importance in the rapid Allied advance. "German AFV's of World War II" and "American AFV's of World War II" by Duncan Crow, although long out of print, both have excellent details about these tanks, including some cost figures.


Rating:
Summary: Thought provoking analysis of American vs. German armor.
Review: This book offers a damning indictment of American armor as it opposed the Wehrmacht on the Western Front in WWII. The gross inferiority of the Sherman tank when confronted with the likes of the Panther and Tiger is painfully brought out. Only the unsung heroism of sometimes poorly trained tank crews, exhaustive recovery and maintenance efforts, support from other arms, and sheer quantity of material enabled U.S. armor to overcome German Panzer units.

Rating:
Summary: Faulty Critique of a Worthwhile Book
Review: This review is as much a response to the snippy and somewhat pathetic review below ("A Faulty Indictment") as it is a direct examination of the book itself. True, Cooper's book does not represent the most lucid prose ever written in the category of war memoir. True, Cooper does make some factual errors and delves into other areas where he is out of his depth. But these are primarily in areas that are extrinsic to the main topic of his book. When it comes to dealing with the issue of the Sherman tank, however, Cooper is on much more solid ground. He offers a unique perspective on what is was like to crew an American tank during WWII. He was actually there. He was in charge of the crews that had to recover and attempt to fix up any number of shot up Sherman tanks (not to mention clean the goo that had been an American soldier off the insides of these same tanks). To nitpick the author regarding some side issues and then trot out a load of misleading stats that do not in any way refute the main thesis of the book (that the Sherman tanks was vastly inferior to the tanks it had to fight) seems to me to border on indecent when compared with the important issues Cooper raises in this book.

The reviewer below holds that writers of memoir should limit themselves to areas in which they have particular knowledge. Good advice. But when Cooper makes assertions in areas where he has perhaps unequaled knowledge and experience the reviewer seeks to rebut him with statistics that do not in any way contradict Cooper's contention that the Sherman was a death trap. He substitutes his book knowledge for the first hand knowledge that Cooper displays in this book. So what if the German's only lost 200 fewer tanks than the allies in Normandy? Isn't it possible that the overwhelming air superiority enjoyed by the allies at that time had something to do with that? Every time a German tank took to the field in daylight hours he risked attack from the air, something that American tankers did not have to worry much about. The other figures cited by Cooper's critic below likewise do not show that Shermans matched up well against German tanks in head on head engagements. If you want to get some relevant stats, just research the armor penetration capability of the Sherman's low velocity 75mm gun vs. that of the high velocity weapons used on the German Tiger, Panther and even the late model Mk IV tanks (which made up the majority of the balance of German tanks in Panzer units at that time). There is no comparison. The German weapons win hands down. This does not even get to the fact that the Tigers and Panthers had thicker armor, and, in the case of the Panther at least, better shaped armor to boot.

The fact (if it is a fact) that the Allies held an advantage in numbers of tanks of 4 to 1, or that the Sherman "was designed for mass production" does not show that Cooper was wrong about the faults of that tank. In any event, the problem of tank supply in 1944 was not production, but shipping and port capacity. Nor does the critic below offer evidence that production of superior tanks in the U.S. would have substantially reduced overall tank production. Also, if you are having significantly fewer tanks destroyed in the field (because they are sufficiently armored to defeat the enemy's tank ordinance, or because you can now destroy your enemy with your more powerful gun without having to get almost suicidally close to him, or because your tank doesn't catch fire every time it takes an otherwise non-fatal hit), you don't need as many tanks produced, as many ships to transport them, or as many docks and cranes to off load them, do you? This is not to mention the fact that your more experienced tank crews could continue to fight and fight more effectively (oh yes, and continue to live too) than the often green crews that would replace them (Cooper relates that after a time totally inexperienced infantrymen, who had never even been in a tank, were being thrown into tanks with little or no training due to the horrendous losses suffered by American tankers).

It's this last point that really gets my blood boiling. Does it matter to the crewman that has had 3 or 4 or more tanks shot out from underneath him that we won the numbers game with the German's with respect to tank production? Or, how about his buddies who had been in the same tank with him, but are now splattered on its insides? Were their families supposed to take comfort in the fact that the tank in which their love-one met his end was "designed for mass production"? In fact, one of the dirty little secrets of WWII is that we manufactured tens of thousands of inferior weapons because of our obsession with production totals. This was true with aircraft as well, but at least in that case we were usually producing some top-notch planes contemporaneously as well. That was not the case with respect to our tanks. By 1944, the Sherman tank was far outclassed by its counterparts. Our soldiers deserved the best our country could provide and we didn't give it to them. That is what this book throws into stark relief.

"Death Traps" is a worthwhile read for anyone wanting to get a full picture of what it was like to fight in an American armored division during WWII. If your interests lie in that direction, don't be misled by some nitpicking Monday Morning Cheerleader and pass it up.

Rating:
Summary: This is NOT a book about the Sherman Tank
Review: While the book was OK for some light reading, it was not written by a Tanker but a liason maint. officer who worked on them. I expected to read alot about crewmen's experiences, especially dueling with the more powerful German Tanks. This was more of one man's exploits running through the woods in a jeep. NOT WHAT I EXPECTED.