I Guess I’m The Commander Now

Shells whizzed by my head exploding behind me and the other riflemen behind the Sherman, never in my life would I believe tanks to be a lasting part of warfare, having only heard stories of their unreliability and lacking comfort, the commander of this tank was Clayton G. Bailey, an old friend who I was lucky enough to meet again, he always hated being in small spaces and would stick his head out of the cupola, to his higher-ups dismay, but nobody stopped him, after all he was an Ace tanker, having beat 2 Tigers on his own after the rest of his cowardly squad retreated, since then he operated without a proper force of three to four Sherman tanks.

The Sherman's engine was loud, but the explosions were worse and constant, making communication hard, and if I wasn't manning the Ma Deuce, I wouldn't have known he was dead in that moment, a sniper punched a hole right in the symbol on his helmet, killing him instantly, while he was telling me one of his old jokes.

He said "So this blind guy walks into a bar, and he says 'do you wanna hear a blond joke?' to the barista who replies 'I'm blond, the guy besi-" THWUMP

the shot kills him instantly, just THWUMP down, it's a shock really, seeing your friends die like that, but he signed up knowing that this war could very well kill him, he wanted to fix all this, set it straight for good! his crew pushed him onto the engine, and drug me in by the arm. The Indian gunning, his name was a mouthful, so we called him Chief, he says "I see that sniper!" and right then the gun came back as it fired "I got him!" The loader turned to me, his name was Edward, and he was unremarkable in every sense but his seemingly endless knowledge of songs to sing while we drive. "I guess your in charge." And so I was.

I felt the whole turret move as Chief found his next target, the bunker, and lobbed a 75mm HE shell right into it, it was disorienting, but I was getting used to seeing through a periscope, and after a second realized a German AT gun was moving into a firing position. Panicking a bit I screamed "Chief, Cannon, AIM LEFT NOW!" And it felt like the turret rotated in slow motion as the AT gun was being loaded, and both guns fired at the same time.

The German AT gun was blown to bits, and by sheer luck glancing us, the whole tank rocked from the impact, I felt like a character in a newspaper story where no matter the suspense always makes it out. Honestly I'm surprised it held out as long as it did, but we'll get there.

With infantry behind us we captured a portion of the city's outer defenses an soon the rest of it would follow, this war had been going since 39, it is now 1946, we are lobbying for Russian aid, but until then America is alone, France and Britain fell by 1942, and Russian politicians don't want a bloody war yet.

Sappers quickly dug in as we stood post, the German forces weren't used to a defense war, and were losing a lot of men, today the Tiger is the most powerful tank on the field, custom made to kill Sherman's, and slowly we would adapt, just like we did in Africa, the Sherman would be outclassed, as M10 tank destroyers could already take out Tigers, but we were still close to the shores of Spain, only 15 miles.

Another tank rolled toward us, it's gun locked back, and a white flag atop it. The commander raised his head out and yelled "wir ergeben uns, bitte schonen Sie die Frauen und Kinder!" I didn't know what that meant, but a white flag meant we won, and therefore Clayton's death wasn't in vain. I was angry, everybody was, but if we just killed them we'd be no better than those monsters.

A small celebration occurred as we had liberated a town, songs were sung, beer was drunk, money from bets exchanged hands, and the long range radio LadyByrd was equipped with sent out a signal saying "we took the town with 3 casualties C. Bailey, K. Scott and B. Thompson. Transmission Over."

We had a break of a few days as proper engineers rebuilt the town walls, we didn't even scathe the factories, but a stray shell demolished the Gauleiters house, crushing him underneath, good riddance too, they'll send civilians with bombs strapped to them with the threat of their families moving them forward, truly monstrous.

During my stay I met Alde, a beautiful French woman in her later twenties, being 19 my chances with her were slim, but I pulled it off, with a simple date outside the walls.