"Good book on tank battles in Bataan" Topic
7 Posts
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| jgawne | 18 Jul 2023 2:43 p.m. PST |
"Thunder on Bataan: The First American Tank Battles of World War II" by Donald L. Caldwell. Just finished reading it and was reasonably impressed. A lot of detail you do not find in the official histories, like they welded twin .50 cal MGs to a homemade mount on a truck for AA defense. It appears to document every US Tank action on The Philippines in 1941 (M3's). Looks to me that if you wanted to game that campaign, this book would be invaluable. Also goes into the formation of the early tank battalions, what happened to all the tankers after they were captured, and their stories of being held prisoners, and how they got home. If you are into early tanks, like M2s and M3s it is a must read. |
| Wackmole9 | 18 Jul 2023 3:27 p.m. PST |
National Guard units that train on the earlier MG only version and coundn't keep the 37mm working, Alos The last US Cavalary charge of Horsemen vs. Tanks |
robert piepenbrink  | 18 Jul 2023 3:28 p.m. PST |
It's been a while. Do I remember correctly that they formed those tank battalions by consolidating the tank companies of National Guard divisions? So about half the pre-WWII Guard tankers never came home. |
| jgawne | 18 Jul 2023 5:01 p.m. PST |
Yes, they were NG tankers. It goes into great detail on those company's formation, training, and amalgamation. |
| robert piepenbrink | 19 Jul 2023 3:17 p.m. PST |
Thinking of a story I heard about a visitor observing a decent-size parade in some small town. The event turned out to be their Guard company going off to annual summer training. When he observed that this seemed like a lot of fuss for a regular event, a local pointed out that hadn't always. But one year their company went off to summer camp and never came home. Since then, they'd been more attentive. There are other possibilities, but I always figured one of those NG tank companies was the most likely candidate. |
| Dn Jackson | 22 Jul 2023 4:59 p.m. PST |
I read it recently. Good book. A couple of things surprised me:
The sponson machine guns were fixed and the tank had to move to aim them. I didn't know that. The tankers dismounted some machine guns and traded them to the infantry for things they needed. At one battle the armor attacked Japanese infantry without infantry support and handily beat them. |
| 79thPA | 28 Jul 2023 6:31 p.m. PST |
I just picked up the book today through inter library loan. |
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is back from Council of Five Nations.