Tank Driver: With the 11th Armored from the Battle of the Bulge to Ve Day

Rating:
Summary: I learned more !
Review: Before reading "Tank driver", I believed I knew all about 41st Tk Bn. It was a mistake ! Ted Hartman tought more to me. And it is written in very pleasant way, not too hard to understand for a Frenchspeaking Belgian like me.
What I appreciated the most is being "plunged" in the atmosphere of the time of the war. And of course, I was able to recognize some friends of mine in the story told by the writer.
A very good job made by Ted Hartman. I would commend this book to all the foreigners who speaks just a little bit English.

Rating:
Summary: After a Return Visit to Belgium
Review: Following a return visit to Belgium last summer and a fresh vision of the area around Bastogne, I was especially keen to read "Tank Driver". I was most decidedly not disappointed. Dr. Hartman's account can be followed without difficulty, aided by military explanations and maps, which the reader can easily fathom. What is unfathomable,however, is how he, at age 19, along with colleagues, many of whom were as young, could survive such a horribly emotional,physically excruciating ordeal, which included the losses of comrades. The intricacies of learning the mechanics of tank driving and maintenance, made learning to drive a manual shift car and changing a flat tire laughable. The author was able to keep this reader's attention with the, surprisingly for tanks, fast paced, scenarios, which are sophisticated enough for adult audiences without entirely losing the voice of a nineteen year old. "Tank Driver" is a book which can be read easily, in a day or so, particularly, by those who have an interest in these violent events near the close of the European war, but also for students who are studying this time period, most especially if they are close in age to what Ted Hartman was as that young soldier, who fought so bravely.

Rating:
Summary: Good but somewhat general account
Review: Following a return visit to Belgium last summer and a fresh vision of the area around Bastogne, I was especially keen to read "Tank Driver". I was most decidedly not disappointed. Dr. Hartman's account can be followed without difficulty, aided by military explanations and maps, which the reader can easily fathom. What is unfathomable,however, is how he, at age 19, along with colleagues, many of whom were as young, could survive such a horribly emotional,physically excruciating ordeal, which included the losses of comrades. The intricacies of learning the mechanics of tank driving and maintenance, made learning to drive a manual shift car and changing a flat tire laughable. The author was able to keep this reader's attention with the, surprisingly for tanks, fast paced, scenarios, which are sophisticated enough for adult audiences without entirely losing the voice of a nineteen year old. "Tank Driver" is a book which can be read easily, in a day or so, particularly, by those who have an interest in these violent events near the close of the European war, but also for students who are studying this time period, most especially if they are close in age to what Ted Hartman was as that young soldier, who fought so bravely.

Rating:
Summary: Good but somewhat general account
Review: Hartman was a PFC with the 41st Battalion, B Company of the 11th Armored Div and saw action from the end of the Bulge battle to the very end of the war. The book is significant by its mere existence. I know of very few books by American tankers. The book is well written and covers from his indoctrination through home coming and even his revisiting Belgium in later years.

Hartman was a M4 Sherman driver and tank commander (although he was initially given the choice of being a driver or a gunner). Unfortunately his details on his many combat actions are light. But he does give a few interesting glimpses into the life of a U.S. tanker.

-He was on the Sherman the whole time but he never details what variants along the way. One picture in the books shows him on a M4A3E8 at the end of the war. He does mention going from the 75mm Sherman to the 76mm during his Bulge actions. He also notes that his battalion got four Pershings (one per company) in April 1945, just before the end of the war. Because no one was familiar with them they were stuck in the back of the column. He said folks felt better knowing the limitations of the Sherman. Although, he does note they wish they had the Pershing during the Bulge fighting. Hartman comments on the great reliability of the Sherman throughout the book and notes the German tanks "lumbered along at a snail's pace compared to ours."

-Tanker losses were really appalling. In nine months of combat the 11th Armored Div suffered 48.1% casualties during the war with 614 killed (out of about 12,000 men in the Div). His 41st Battalion suffered 68 killed (about 11%) and his Company B suffered 23 killed (about 20%). What is amazing is the high loss of officers and tank commanders. His company commander was killed within minutes of their first action and in the nine months I think they went through three or four COs (one at least was wounded and returned later). He only seems to comment on a couple of bad platoon leaders. He lost numerous tank commanders either directly or as they left to fill other vacancies. In the Forward of the book, Spencer Tucker states that the 3rd Armored Div suffered 580% casualties of its tanks (either destroyed or 'knocked-out') and that the U.S. lost 6,000 tanks in Europe during the war.

-Hartman comments on the poor performance of the 75mm gun and that they had to get rear shots on the German tanks. "The German gun had fired an armor-piercing projectile that entered the turret, killed all three men, and then exited the other side. We knew the German 88 was extremely powerful, but this was devastating to see. We were later able to measure the distance from which it had been fired-1,700 yards, almost a mile!" What is most notable though is the low number of actual tank vs tank actions (at least that he describes). What seemed to cause the most tank loses were panzershreck attacks (the author always says panzershreck or even bazooka but who knows if this was strictly true or if he did not differentiate among panzerfaust, etc.). Snipers also killed a number of his comrades.

-The author describes working very frequently with armored infantry troops and how often a couple troops would ride on the back deck of the tank to spot enemy infantry and AT units. He also talks about how 'Art' (a call sign), the Piper Cub spotter plane, would fly overhead and call down artillery on enemy positions and even help give them driving directions through towns. Art also called in tactical air cover and Hartman comments on P-47s firing rockets at the enemy. He mentions at least a couple of occasions when the tankers would act as or support infantry clearing houses.

Rating:
Summary: Boring.
Review: I really did not enjoy this book. It started out pretty interesting, but after the writer got to Europe it devolved into, "we drove and drove some more." There is very little details about any of the battles this unit was involved in, it pretty much deals with the author and his unit driving until the end of the war. I understand he was a "tank driver" although he did command a few tanks during a few times during the war, but it would have been a better book if he had provided more details of the battles his company had.

Rating:
Summary: Book Review of Tank Driver
Review: Indelible memories of 1942-45 linger from my pubescent period. Images are those heard and seen via an upright Philco and black and white news reels between feature Westerns at Saturday afternoon movies.

Reading Tank Driver offered faces, skin and muscles to a very real corpus of WWII action. A large trove of letters by the author to his parents in Ames, Iowa, informs his writing and reportorial prowess. From the Bulge to the mesas of Los Alamos there is a compelling need to begin with Tank Driver. Well done, J. Ted Hartman.