Death Traps (#278)
Today’s post covers another aspect of the D-Day invasion -- the book Death Traps: The Survival of an American Armored Division in World War II. Death Traps is the World War II memoir of Belton Y. Cooper. David Ayer, the writer and director of the movie Fury, used some of Cooper’s stories as the inspiration for the movie.
This year, I am doing a series on leaders and leadership in the European Theater of Operations (ETO) in World War II. This is 23rd in the series. Check out the blog to see them all or go to the links at the bottom of this article to see the most recent ones.
Belton Cooper
Belton Cooper (October 4, 1917 - May 26, 2007) was born in Huntsville, Alabama. Commissioned through the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) at the Virginia Military Institute, Cooper served with the 3rd Armored Division during World War II. As a 27-year old officer, he saw action from landing in Normandy on June 24, 1944 through the Allied invasion and occupation of Germany in 1945. He was tasked with the "recovery, repair, and maintenance" of US tanks in the “Spearhead” Division. As part of his duties he regularly traveled in a jeep between the front lines and the US supply trains to deliver reports on tank and vehicle losses. As he called it, "the void" was an area ranging from a few miles to as many as 50 miles (80 km).
M4 Sherman in Bastogne
In 1998, Belton Cooper published Death Traps: The Survival of an American Armored Division in World War II on his experience in the 3rd Armored Division. On page 148, he conveys a story which was used as the inspiration for a scene in the movie Fury:
In the fighting around Hastenrath and Scherpenseel, the tankers, without adequate infantry support, performed almost superhuman acts of heroism to hold on throughout the night. It was reported that one of the tankers, in his tank on a road junction, was the only surviving member of his crew but was determined to hold his position at all costs. A German infantry unit approached, apparently not spotting the tank in the darkness. The lone tanker had previously sighted his 76mm tank gun down the middle of the road. He depressed the mechanism slightly and loaded a 76mm HE. As the Germans advanced in parallel columns along each side of the road, he fired. The HE shell hit the ground about 150 feet in front of the tank and ricocheted to a height of about 3 feet before it exploded.
The shock took the Germans completely by surprise. The American tanker continued to fire all HE he had as rapidly as possible, swinging the turret around to spray the German infantry, who were trying to escape into the fields on both sides of the highway. Loading and firing the gun by himself was extremely difficult, because he had to cross to the other side of the gun to load and come back to the gunner’s position to fire.
After exhausting his HE and .30 caliber ammunition, he opened the turret and swung the .50 caliber around on the ring mount and fired again. He continued firing until all his .50 Caliber ammunition was exhausted, then he grabbed his .45 submachine gun from the fighting compartment and opened fire with this. After using al the ammunition from his Thompson and his pistol, he dropped back into the turret and closed the hatch.
He opened his box of hand grenades and grabbed one. When he heard German infantry climb onto the back of the tank, he pulled the pin, cracked the turret hatch slightly, and threw the grenade. It killed all the Germans on the back of the tank and those around it on the ground. He continued to do this until all the grenades were gone; then he closed the hatch and secured it.
By this time, the German infantry unit apparently decided to bypass the tank. From the vicious rate of firing, they must have assumed that they had run up on an entire reinforced roadblock. When our infantry arrived the next day, they found the brave young tanker still alive in the tank. The entire surrounding area was littered with German dead and wounded. This, to me, was one of the most courageous acts of individual heroism In World War II.
There is some questions around the validity of this story. Nevertheless, it made its way on film.
One of the more interesting parts of the book to me was the tank losses the division lost as it fought its way across Europe. Cooper states that the 3rd Armored Division had 232 M4 Sherman Tanks and 158 M5 Light Tanks assigned to it. During its 231 days in combat, the Division lost 648 tanks destroyed and 700 damaged, repaired, and put back in the fight. The 3rd Armored Division lost 580% of its tanks! These numbers are in line with what we are seeing in combat in Ukraine today. In addition, the 16,000 soldiers assigned to the “Spearhead” Division suffered a total of 2,540 killed, 7,331 wounded, 95 missing, and 139 captured.
Conclusion
The last five blog posts on leaders and leadership from the World War II European Theater of Operations are:
Interested in bringing your team to Leadership Experience that uses historic case studies, like Belton Cooper’s experience during World War II? TFCG offers the D-Day, Market-Garden, and Battle of the Bulge Leadership Experiences in Europe. TFCG also offers the Eisenhower, Currahee!, the War in the Pacific Museum, and Pearl Harbor Leadership Experiences in the United States. Send me an email and we can start the discussion today about building better leaders in your organization using a historic Leadership Experience. Or click on one of the pictures to learn more about that specific program.
In the meantime, go on the offensive and use the story of the Belton Cooper to inspire you this week.