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During the race from Herborn to Paderborn, our crew led our
group with our T26 tank. After the breakthrough we moved so fast
that many times we passed their roadblocks so quickly that they
never got to fire a shot at us. We destroyed a lot of enemy equipment
without suffering a lot of damage.
At Paderborn, we had to cross a large open field as we approached
the town. This was another hard battle where we had many tanks
knocked out. After fighting our way across the open field, we
headed toward the railroad station, where we encountered many
snipers and troops with panzerfausts (bazookas). Many of our
tanks were out of action by this time.
The crews took shelter in the railroad station as the battle
raged on. We kept changing our position to avoid the panzerfausts,
which were coming from behind the bank of a raised roadway that
led to a bridge over the railroad tracks. We kept shooting high
explosive shells into the trees lining this road, trying to get
the shell to explode in the trees and scatter shrapnel down on
the enemy.
Finally, after a long period of this, we were hit on the muzzle
brake of our 90mm cannon with a panzerfaust. This hit caused
the 90mm to fire and put a lot of smoke and fire inside the tank.
Our tank commander thought the tank was on fire and burning up,
so he ordered everybody to abandon tank.
Once out of the tank, we were crawling along a hedge row,
where German snipers and machine-gunners were trying to pick
us off. After this, we realized the tank was not actually burning
up and, except for the hole in the muzzle brake, was okay. So,
we quickly got back into the tank and back into the battle.
As we continued firing on the panzerfaust teams, our tank
commander looked behind us and saw a Mark V coming toward us
about 50 yards away. The tank commander ordered me to turn the
gun to the rear, which I did and fired the 90mm, hitting the
Mark V in front between the driver and assistant driver, knocking
the tank out and killing the assistant driver. The rest of their
crew bailed out and ran away. I fired over the head of one of
them with our machine gun. He fell in the street and kept watching
our tank. Finally, he got up and ran down the street. I didn't
want to shoot him in the back so I let him go.
After a while, our crewmen, who were in the railroad station,
saw the German tank and thought he was going to fire on them.
They were relieved to find out that we had already knocked the
tank out. After we knocked this tank out, the Germans faded away
and the battle for Paderborn was over.
Some months ago there was an article in our 3rd A.D. Newsletter
giving credit to a fighter pilot for knocking out the last German
tank in Paderborn. I believe we were the ones that destroyed
the last German tank, so if the article in the newsletter referred
to the one by the railroad station, then the crew from the T26
from E Co. 32 A.R. should have been given credit. At any rate,
after we destroyed this tank the battle for Paderborn in our
area was over.
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