I heard about the book on local TV since it was about a local WWII tank gunner from not far south of me. The video is 1 min. 44 sec. trailer of war footage introducing the book. Summary: When Clarence Smoyer is assigned to the gunner's seat of his Sherman tank, his crewmates discover that the gentle giant from Pennsylvania has a hidden talent: He's a natural-born shooter. At first, Clarence and his fellow crews in the legendary 3rd Armored Division -- "Spearhead" -- thought their tanks were invincible. Then they met the German Panther, with a gun so murderous it could shoot through one Sherman and into the next. Soon a pattern emerged: The lead tank always gets hit. After Clarence sees his friends cut down breaching the West Wall and holding the line in the Battle of the Bulge, he and his crew are given a weapon with the power to avenge their fallen brothers: the Pershing, a state-of-the-art "super tank," one of twenty in the European theater. But with it comes a harrowing new responsibility: Now they will spearhead every attack. That's how Clarence, the corporal from coal country, finds himself leading the U.S. Army into its largest urban battle of the European war, the fight for Cologne, the "Fortress City" of Germany. Battling through the ruins, Clarence will engage the fearsome Panther in a duel immortalized by an army cameraman. And he will square off with Gustav Schaefer, a teenager behind the trigger in a Panzer IV tank, whose crew has been sent on a suicide mission to stop the Americans. As Clarence and Gustav trade fire down a long boulevard, they are taken by surprise by a tragic mistake of war. What happens next will haunt Clarence to the modern day, drawing him back to Cologne to do the unthinkable: to face his enemy, one last time.
@Ed Wilson We’ve seen the entire film about that duel on Youtube. The car that was shot at contained two civilians who were trying to escape. The young woman was severely injured and was treated by American medics but sadly died of her wounds. She was identified many years later. My husband’s grandmother was born in Cologne and met her future husband who was an English soldier in the occupation army after World War One. She went with him back to England in the mid 1920’s and missed the horrors of the bombing. But her parents and two sisters remained there. One sister, her husband and two of their four children were burned to death in one of the thousand bomber raids. The other family members survived. We’ve visited Cologne many times as my husband still has relatives there.
Meaning, good post, getting some first hand information and acknowledgement, as it were. or, I liked your reply.
It's slang term I've used since my young military days as You can use the line “How 'bout them apples?” or “How about them apples?” when either you and the person you're speaking are surprised by certain events, or only the person you're speaking to is surprised.Mar 28, 2019 What Does the “How 'Bout Them Apples?” Slang Mean? and/or "); display: inline-block; height: 24px; width: 24px; margin-top: -1px; transform: rotateZ(-180deg);"> “How do you like them apples” is an expression that supposedly originated during the first World War, when the Allies' anti-tank grenade was colloquially called a “toffee apple” because of its bulb-like appearance on a stick. The phrase was a taunt against the enemy.Oct 14, 2018 And was used thusly: In Good Will Hunting (1997), Will Hunting (played by Matt Damon) is a self-taught genius whose past trauma and emotional turmoil prevents him from advancing in life and making new connections. In this scene, a male student tries to impress a girl at a bar while humiliating Will’s friend Chuckie by trying to talk about academics. Will calls the student out on his limited ability to simply recite whatever he read in class without forming his own opinion. Will eventually gets the girl’s number instead, and when he shows this off to the beaten student, he says “How do you like them apples?” It’s a phrase heard often in American lingo. Other variants such as “How about them apples?” or “How about dem apples?” may sound odd to non-Americans or non-English speakers who don’t understand why apples suddenly fit into the context. However, once you understand the origins and the meaning behind it, you too can smoothly use this idiom in everyday conversation. In this article, we review American idioms, the meaning behind the phrase “How ‘bout them apples?” and its similar forms, and how you can use it in everyday conversations.