He was in line for a Bronze Star but jinxed himself. In Cologne, reporters rushed to interview him, the attention making him uncomfortable. At a theater in Pennsylvania, the gunner’s proud family saw the clip in a newsreel. Jim Bates, captured footage of the showdown and afterward filmed the victorious tank crew, including Smoyer. Smoyer fired three armor-piercing shells and set it ablaze.Īn American combat cameraman, Sgt. The German tank, 70 yards away, could have pounced but hesitated. The Panther had already destroyed a Sherman tank, killing three Americans.Īs the Pershing edged into the intersection, Smoyer and his crew saw the Panther’s barrel pointed right at them. Smoyer’s Pershing clanked onward to face a mighty Panther tank lying in wait at an intersection. He fired shells at the building, causing bricks to crash down onto the Panzer and immobilize it. His crew had orders to keep going to the Rhine, beyond the cathedral, so they had to act. A door opened, and a passenger fell onto the street. So did the gunner in the enemy tank, a Panzer. When a car raced into the intersection, Smoyer blasted it with machine-gun fire. In the rubble-strewn inner city March 6, Smoyer saw a German tank creep out from a street corner and pull back quickly.
The metropolis was in ruins from Allied airstrikes. He recalled his lieutenant saying over the radio: “Gentlemen, I give you Cologne. Smoyer was now the gunner on a new Pershing “super tank,” one of only 20 operating in Europe.
In February 1945, the division crossed into Germany and pushed toward the Rhine River at Cologne. Smoyer remembered cold nights in the Ardennes and weeks of confusion about exactly where he and his crew were, and whether friend or foe was in the next field. The 3rd Armored, called the “Spearhead” division, reached Germany by mid-September and redeployed to Belgium to help beat back the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge.
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