(relatively) early Sherman Tank at Utah Beach

Sunday, May 30. 2010

(relatively) early Sherman Tank at Utah Beach

Most of the Sherman tanks on display in Normandy are "Easy Eights", a model which showed up fairly late in the war, with a long barrelled 76mm gun and a distinctly different turret and suspension. Easy Eights didn't fight in Normandy, they weren't in combat yet. This tank, which is on display at Utah Beach, is an earlier M4A1, with the cylindrical turret, the short barrelled 75mm gun, and the early suspension.

Painted in the colors of the French 2nd Armored, it's a tank that might might actually have served in Normandy in that unit. The 2nd Armored was brought into combat as part of Patton's Third Army, activated as part of the follow through to Operation Cobra at the end of the Normandy campaign. The French have placed this tank on display at Utah beach to commemorate the arrival of the 2nd Armored at Utah beach as the first major French unit to enter combat as part of the liberation.

Posted by Richard Welty in Military History at 02:44 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

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