Overview

At first, gunner Clarence Smoyer and his fellow crewmen 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 theatre. But with it comes a harrowing new responsibility: now they will spearhead every attack. That's how Clarence 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 confronted 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.

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9781782395812

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Reviews

This moving story of bravery and comradeship is an important contribution to WWII history that will inform and fascinate both the general reader and the military historian. * Publishers Weekly (starred review) * A compelling, exciting adventure of a hard-driving American force. * Kirkus Reviews * 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 * Makos drops the reader back into the Pershing's turret and dials up a battle scene to rival the peak moments of Fury. . . Brilliant . . . Gripping * Wall Street Journal *

Author Information

Adam Makos is a journalist, historian and editor of the military magazine, Valor. Makos has interviewed countless veterans from the Second World War, Korea, Vietnam, and present-day wars. In 2008 Makos travelled to Iraq to accompany the 101st Airborne and Army Special Forces on their hunt for Al Qaeda terrorists. He is the author, with Larry Alexander, of A Higher Call, which was a Sunday Times bestseller, and Devotion.

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