Dare All Dangers: The 741st Tank Battalion in World War II, D Day to VE

DareAll Dangers chronicles the 741st Tank Battalion during World War II. Thebook stands as more than a narrative history of the battalion, though itrecounts the grim facts and figures. It is the story of men in mortal danger, atestament to their ability to maintain a sense of their humanity while enduringcombat and all its shuddering horrors. The 741st waged a grueling war thatbegan on D-Day when twenty-seven of its amphibious tanks sank, and haplesscrewmen perished in the frigid water. Other tanks from the battalionsuccessfully landed that day. Their crews battled on Omaha beach beforecarrying the fight into Normandy and the green hell of hedgerow country. After a hard-won victory in France,the battalion paraded through Paris, motoring down the Champs-Élysées, greetedby waving, screaming crowds. The euphoria of a liberated people enveloped thetankers, but the war and its agonies pulled them back. The 741st plunged into combat alongGermany’s Westwall and fell into a muddy, grinding stalemate that dragged onthrough the autumn. The impasse finally ended with the Battle of the Bulge whenan SS Panzer Division slammed into the battalion. The defending GIs prevailedduring the bitter, wintertime struggle. Afterward, the battalion swept acrossGermany, tangling with Tiger tanks and deadly Flak guns as the Third Reich diedin a firestorm of its own making. The war ended for the 741st in Czechoslovakiaon V-E Day, where the surviving tank crewmen found themselves mobbed by anotherexuberant, liberated population. Fifty years after the war, the book’sauthor, Bill Warnock, commenced work on a narrative about the valiant crewmenand their exploits. The project began by gathering memoirs, battle maps,wartime letters, and official records. Clues also lay in US Army motion-picturefilm, still photographs, and aerial-reconnaissance imagery. The author hikedthe former battlegrounds to familiarize himself with the terrain, architecture,and local cultures. He also conducted nearly 100 interviews with 741st veteransduring the 1990s, interviews unobtainable today since the “Greatest Generation”has mostly passed on. The interviews add color and dimension to the story,something impossible to derive from the dry, laconic reports found in officialrecords. Every person interviewed is nowdeceased, but their stories live on in this book. Its pages bring alive thesavvy and raw courage it took to survive and achieve victory. Its words capturethe sounds, images, and explicit details of armored warfare. As one veteransaid, “God never made any finer men than good soldiers.” The 741st proved it,time and again.