Off the Coast of Leyte Island, the Philippines • October 23, 1944 Allied campaigns from August 1942 to early 1944 had driven Japanese forces from many of their South and Central Pacific island bases, while isolating many of their other bases in the same area. The Allies bypassed a few Japanese bases like Rota in the…
Washington, D.C. • September 8, 1939 On this date in 1939, 8 days after Nazi Germany invaded neighboring Poland and triggered World War II in Europe, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared a state of “limited national emergency.” The proclamation directed measures “for the purpose of strengthening our [U.S.] national defense within the limits of peacetime authorizations.”…
Kyūshū Island, Japan • August 25, 1945 On this date in 1945, 10 days after Japanese Emperor Hirohito had announced his agreement to surrender his nation unconditionally, two U.S. Army pilots flying P‑38 Lightnings on armed reconnaissance landed at Nittagahara Airfield on Kyūshū Island, the southernmost Japanese Home Island, after one of the P‑38s ran low…
Camp Ritchie, Maryland • June 19, 1942 On this date in 1942 the U.S. Army activated the Military Intelligence Training Center (MITC) at Camp Ritchie. Former property of a failed ice company, the rural site was converted into a summer training camp for the Maryland National Guard in 1926. Sixteen years later the U.S. Army…
Anzio, Italy • February 16, 1944 On this date in 1944, a day after the historic Benedictine abbey at Monte Cassino was bombed by Allied aircraft, the Germans launched their long-delayed counterattack on the Allied-held beachhead at Anzio, a small Mediterranean resort and port some 35 miles/56 kilometers south of the Italian capital, Rome. Just the month…
West New Britain, Papua New Guinea • December 26, 1943 Following the successful conclusion of the U.S. and Australian Buna-Gona Campaign on New Guinea’s southeastern peninsula in late-January 1943, the Allies moved west along the island’s north shore. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in the Southwest Pacific Area, used Buna (see map, lower…
Cape Torokina, Bougainville, Territory of New Guinea • November 1, 1943 Guadalcanal, the largest island in the southern Solomon Islands, was the site where the string of Japanese conquests, starting in Janunary 1942, finally ran its course. The bloody fight for Guadalcanal (August 7, 1942 to February 9, 1943) was a recognized turning point in…
SHAEF HQ, Versailles, France • September 5, 1944 On this date in 1944 Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, determined that the route U.S. forces would take from liberated areas in France and Belgium eastward into Nazi Germany would pass through the ancient city of Aachen, once the seat of…
Detroit, Michigan • July 17, 1940 As war clouds gathered over Europe in the late 1930s, the U.S. Army asked American automobile manufacturers to tender suggestions to replace its aging light-motor vehicles, mostly motorcycles and sidecars but also (incredible as it seems) some Ford Model Ts. As early as 1937–1938, several prototypes were presented to Army…
NEW YORK TIMES, WALL STREET JOURNAL, AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER • “A band of brothers in an American tank . . . Makos drops the reader back into the Pershing’s turret and dials up a battle scene to rival the peak moments of Fury.”—The Wall Street Journal
From the author of the international bestseller A Higher Call comes the riveting World War II story of an American tank gunner’s journey into the heart of the Third Reich, where he will meet destiny in an iconic armor duel—and forge an enduring bond with his enemy.
When Clarence Smoyer is assigned to the gunner’s seat of his Sherman tank, his crewmates discover that the gentle giant from Pennsylvania has a hidden talent: He’s a natural-born shooter.
At first, Clarence and his fellow crews in the legendary 3rd Armored Division—“Spearhead”—thought their tanks were invincible. Then they met the German Panther, with a gun so murderous it could shoot through one Sherman and into the next. Soon a pattern emerged: The lead tank always gets hit.
After Clarence sees his friends cut down breaching the West Wall and holding the line in the Battle of the Bulge, he and his crew are given a weapon with the power to avenge their fallen brothers: the Pershing, a state-of-the-art “super tank,” one of twenty in the European theater.
But with it comes a harrowing new responsibility: Now they will spearhead every attack. That’s how Clarence, the corporal from coal country, finds himself leading the U.S. Army into its largest urban battle of the European war, the fight for Cologne, the “Fortress City” of Germany.
Battling through the ruins, Clarence will engage the fearsome Panther in a duel immortalized by an army cameraman. And he will square off with Gustav Schaefer, a teenager behind the trigger in a Panzer IV tank, whose crew has been sent on a suicide mission to stop the Americans.
As Clarence and Gustav trade fire down a long boulevard, they are taken by surprise by a tragic mistake of war. What happens next will haunt Clarence to the modern day, drawing him back to Cologne to do the unthinkable: to face his enemy, one last time.
Praise for Spearhead
“A detailed, gripping account . . . the remarkable story of two tank crewmen, from opposite sides of the conflict, who endure the grisly nature of tank warfare.”—USA Today (four out of four stars)
“An engaging story of blood, sweat and tears . . . a wonderful homage to the Greatest Generation.”—The Providence Journal