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German tank crews learned to fear the bazooka not because it outgunned a Sherman, but because it could appear anywhere and kill from almost nowhere. From the bocage in Normandy to the frozen crossroads of Rocherath, this WW2 military history story follows Panthers, Panzer IVs, and the American infantrymen who turned hedgerows, ditches, and cellar windows into deadly ambush points.
At Rocherath, William Soderman, a former butcher from Connecticut, faced down Panthers with a single tube and one rocket at a time. The transcript also traces how the bazooka spread through the U.S. Army, how shaped charges changed anti-tank warfare, and why German armor could not solve a threat that was silent, close, and unpredictable. It is a battlefield narrative about tank crews, infantry tactics, and the psychology of armored combat.
For viewers and listeners who enjoy WW2 stories, military history documentary narration, anti-tank warfare, bazooka history, and World War 2 battlefield analysis, this is a gripping listen. It also fits search intent for historical war stories, armored warfare, and narrated history content with a strong focus on the Western Front.
WW2 military history, bazooka story, anti-tank warfare, armored combat, and narrated World War 2 history all fit this episode. If you search for German tank crews, Panther tank history, Sherman tank battles, or WW2 infantry tactics, this story delivers the full tactical and human side of the battlefield.
At Rocherath, William Soderman, a former butcher from Connecticut, faced down Panthers with a single tube and one rocket at a time. The transcript also traces how the bazooka spread through the U.S. Army, how shaped charges changed anti-tank warfare, and why German armor could not solve a threat that was silent, close, and unpredictable. It is a battlefield narrative about tank crews, infantry tactics, and the psychology of armored combat.
For viewers and listeners who enjoy WW2 stories, military history documentary narration, anti-tank warfare, bazooka history, and World War 2 battlefield analysis, this is a gripping listen. It also fits search intent for historical war stories, armored warfare, and narrated history content with a strong focus on the Western Front.
WW2 military history, bazooka story, anti-tank warfare, armored combat, and narrated World War 2 history all fit this episode. If you search for German tank crews, Panther tank history, Sherman tank battles, or WW2 infantry tactics, this story delivers the full tactical and human side of the battlefield.
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LearningTranscript
00:00December 17th, 1944. Rocherath, Belgium.
00:05A column of five Panther tanks from the 12th SS Panzer Division grinds down a frozen road toward a crossroads
00:11they have been ordered to take before dawn.
00:14It is early evening. The fog sits low over the Ardennes, turning the stone houses on either side of the
00:20road into gray shapes barely distinguishable from the sky.
00:24The crews inside these Panthers are not green. They have fought Shermans. They know what an American tank sounds like,
00:31how it moves, where it hides.
00:34Against a Sherman, a Panther wins most engagements. Its long-barrel 75mm gun punches through American armor at distances a
00:43Sherman gunner cannot match.
00:45This is a fact German tankers carry in their bones. A Sherman, you fight. A Sherman, you can beat.
00:52But tonight, the crews are not scanning for Shermans. They are scanning hedgerows, doorways, ditches, the rubble along the base
01:01of stone walls.
01:03The turrets swivel left, then right, then left again. Coaxial machine guns fire short bursts into the darkness. Not at
01:11targets, but at possibilities.
01:14The column moves at walking pace. Forty-five tons of steel creeping through a Belgian village like a man feeling
01:22his way through a dark room.
01:24They are searching for something they cannot see.
01:27Behind a low wall, less than 30 yards from the road, a 24-year-old private first class crouches with
01:34a tube on his shoulder.
01:36William Soderman, former butcher from West Haven, Connecticut. His loader has been wounded and pulled back. He is alone.
01:45The tube weighs 13 pounds. Inside it sits a single rocket. He has one shot before he needs to reload.
01:54And he cannot reload alone, not fast enough.
01:58He can feel the panther now. The vibration through the frozen earth. The low growl of the Maybach engine. The
02:06barrel of the main gun slides past his position like a finger pointing at nothing.
02:12Soderman stands up. Full height. No cover.
02:17He fires. The lead panther erupts. The crew scrambles out into the snow. The four remaining tanks accelerate through the
02:25crossroads, machine guns raking every shadow, every doorway, every stretch of wall.
02:31Soderman is flat against the frozen ground as the tracks churn past, close enough to feel the heat of the
02:36exhaust on his face.
02:38He does not leave. He stays through the night, alone, under mortar fire, under machine gun bursts.
02:46Waiting.
02:47And when five more panthers come at dawn, he does it again. And then a third time. Three tanks, one
02:56man, one tube.
02:59Stories like Soderman's deserve to be heard. If you agree, a like and a subscribe helps this reach the people
03:05who care about them.
03:08Now, hold that image in your mind, because here is the question I need you to sit with for the
03:13next hour.
03:14That panther weighed 45 tons. Its frontal armor could stop nearly anything the Western Allies fired at it.
03:22Building one cost the German Reich more than 117,000 Reichmarks, roughly the price of two houses.
03:29It took 55,000 man-hours of skilled labor to assemble. Five men trained for months to crew it.
03:38The weapon that set the lead tank burning was a hollow steel tube, four feet long, carried on a soldier's
03:44back like a fishing rod.
03:46It had no engine, no optics worth mentioning, no armor of its own.
03:52An American factory could stamp one out in a fraction of the time it took Germany to weld a single
03:57panther hull plate.
03:58And yet, by the winter of 1944, German tank crews feared that tube more than they feared the 33-ton
04:07Sherman tank that was specifically designed to destroy them.
04:11Think about what that means.
04:17A Sherman carried a cannon, a radio, a crew of five, its own armor, and the ability to chase you
04:24across open ground at 25 miles an hour.
04:27By any measure on paper, it was the more dangerous weapon.
04:32But paper did not matter to the man sitting inside a panther, squinting through a viewport the size of a
04:38mail slot, straining to hear a sound that would never come.
04:43Because the bazooka's rocket motor burned out inside the launch tube.
04:47By the time the projectile crossed the 30 yards between a hedgerow and your hull, it was silent.
04:54The first thing a tank crew heard was the hit.
04:58Why?
04:59Why would the most heavily armored vehicle on the battlefield fear the lightest anti-tank weapon aimed at it?
05:05The answer is not simple.
05:07It has three layers, and each one cuts deeper than the last.
05:12The first is tactical.
05:14What the bazooka could do that a tank could not.
05:17The second is mathematical.
05:19And when you see the numbers, you will understand why no amount of German engineering could solve the problem.
05:26The third layer is psychological.
05:28And it is the one that broke something inside the minds of men who had once believed that steel kept
05:35them safe.
05:36But before any of that makes sense, you need to understand something that seems obvious, but isn't.
05:41You need to see why German tank crews were not afraid of Shermans.
05:46Because that confidence, that justified, earned, entirely rational confidence, is exactly the thing that made the bazooka so devastating.
05:56It was built on a lesson German tankers had learned and carried like gospel from their first encounters with American
06:02armor.
06:03A lesson that turned out to be dangerously, fatally, incomplete.
06:08To understand why the bazooka terrified German tank crews, you first have to understand the world those crews lived in.
06:15Because it was a world that made sense.
06:18Picture it from inside a Panther.
06:20You are sitting behind 80 millimeters of sloped frontal armor.
06:23Your gun, the long barrel 75, can punch through a Sherman's hole at nearly 2,000 meters.
06:31The Sherman standard 75 millimeter cannon cannot penetrate your glacis plate at any range.
06:37Not at 1,000 meters.
06:40Not at 500.
06:42Not at point blank.
06:44The physics are absolute.
06:46If you are facing a Sherman head-on, and you fire first, the Sherman dies.
06:52If the Sherman fires first, the round bounces off your hull, and then you fire, and the Sherman dies anyway.
06:59This is not arrogance.
07:01This is mathematics.
07:04German panzer crews on the Western Front had learned that math in blood.
07:08They had seen Sherman's burn.
07:10They had watched American armor advance across an open field,
07:14and picked it apart at distances where the return fire couldn't touch them.
07:19A German tanker in 1944 understood the geometry of an armored engagement
07:24the way a chess player understands the board.
07:27Range.
07:28Angle.
07:29Penetration.
07:30Rate of fire.
07:31Within that geometry, the Panther was the superior piece.
07:35And the men inside it knew it.
07:38Here is what that knowledge felt like.
07:41It felt like safety.
07:44You buttoned your hatches, you scanned the terrain through your optics,
07:48and you looked for the things that could hurt you.
07:50Other tanks, anti-tank guns, aircraft.
07:54Big things.
07:56Visible things.
07:57Things that made noise.
07:59Threw dust.
08:00Left tracks in the mud.
08:02The battlefield had a grammar, and a trained crew could read it.
08:06A Sherman announced itself.
08:08You heard the radial engine from half a kilometer away.
08:12You saw the dust trail.
08:14You spotted the silhouette.
08:16That high, boxy turret was unmistakable.
08:19You calculated the range.
08:21You laid the gun.
08:22You fired.
08:24You knew exactly where the threat was,
08:26and you knew exactly how to kill it.
08:29Hold that feeling.
08:31The sense of order.
08:33The sense that steel and skill and a good gun
08:36were enough to keep you alive.
08:38Because that feeling,
08:40that rational, justified confidence,
08:42is what the bazooka destroyed.
08:45Not the armor.
08:46The feeling.
08:48But in early 1943,
08:50none of that had happened yet.
08:52The Panther hadn't even reached the front.
08:56And the weapon that would eventually haunt German tankers
08:59had just arrived on a battlefield for the first time.
09:02And almost nobody noticed.
09:07Tunisia.
09:08February 1943.
09:11The American army is fighting its first serious engagement
09:14against German armor.
09:15And it is not going well.
09:18At Kasserine Pass,
09:20Rommel's panzers rip through inexperienced American units.
09:23Tanks are lost.
09:25Ground is lost.
09:27Confidence is shattered.
09:29It is one of the worst defeats
09:31the United States suffers in the entire war.
09:34But buried inside that disaster
09:36is a detail the Germans should have paid more attention to.
09:40Among the American equipment captured in the retreat,
09:43alongside rifles, radios, rations,
09:46and the wreckage of 30-ton tanks,
09:49German soldiers find a batch of strange tubes,
09:53four feet long,
09:55open at both ends,
09:56weighing almost nothing.
09:59Alongside the tubes are small rockets
10:02tipped with oddly shaped warheads.
10:05Nobody knows quite what to make of them.
10:07They look primitive.
10:09They look like something a man might build in a garage.
10:13The Germans ship several back to ordnance labs in the Reich.
10:17Engineers disassemble them,
10:19examine the shape-charge warhead,
10:21test-fire the rockets into steel plate.
10:24And here is the moment I want you to mark,
10:26because it matters later.
10:28When the warhead detonates against armor,
10:31it does not push through by force.
10:34It does something stranger.
10:36The shaped charge creates a jet of superheated copper,
10:40moving at nearly 8,000 meters per second.
10:43A needle of molten metal that cuts through steel
10:46the way a blowtorch cuts through wax.
10:49It does not care how thick the plate is within its range.
10:52It does not care about angle.
10:54It does not care that the plate belongs to a 50-ton Tiger
10:58or a 30-ton Panzer IV.
11:00The jet simply goes through.
11:03The Germans are not fools.
11:06They understand immediately what this means.
11:08A single infantryman,
11:10hidden in a ditch,
11:11carrying a tube that weighs less than a rifle,
11:14can now kill a tank.
11:16Not damage it.
11:19Not track it.
11:21Kill it.
11:21And kill the men inside.
11:23Their response is swift.
11:25Within months,
11:27German engineers reverse-engineer the American bazooka
11:29into something bigger.
11:30The Rakutenpanzerbuxa,
11:32which frontline troops will call the Panzerschreck.
11:36Tank terror.
11:38The German version fires an 88-millimeter warhead
11:41instead of the American 60-millimeter.
11:43It is heavier.
11:44It has more range.
11:45It hits harder.
11:47But pay attention to what Germany just did.
11:49They captured a weapon
11:51and built a better version of it.
11:53That is a normal military response.
11:55Study, copy, improve.
11:58It is what competent armies do.
12:00What Germany did not do,
12:02what they could not do,
12:03was ask the question that mattered.
12:06They looked at the bazooka
12:08and saw a weapon,
12:09a tool,
12:10a thing that one soldier fires at one tank,
12:13and a thing, they believed,
12:15that could be countered,
12:16with thicker armor,
12:18with side skirts,
12:19with better tactics.
12:20They were wrong.
12:22The bazooka was not a weapon.
12:25It was the visible edge
12:26of something much larger,
12:28a system that was about to produce that tube
12:30in numbers that would make the word
12:32weapon meaningless.
12:35And that system was just getting started.
12:38Germany's answer came fast.
12:41By the spring of 1943,
12:43months after the first bazookas
12:44were captured in Tunisia,
12:46German engineers had a countermeasure
12:48on the factory floor.
12:49They called them schützen,
12:52skirts,
12:53thin steel plates,
12:55five to eight millimeters thick,
12:57bolted onto rails
12:58along the sides of Panzer 3s,
13:00Panzer 4s,
13:01and Sturmgeschütz assault guns.
13:04The theory was straightforward.
13:07A shaped charge warhead
13:08needs to detonate
13:09at a precise distance
13:10from the main armor
13:11to form its copper jet properly.
13:13If you can make it detonate early,
13:16on a thin outer plate
13:17centimeters away
13:18from the real hull,
13:19the jet disperses
13:21before it reaches
13:22the armor that matters.
13:24At the Kummersdorf proving ground,
13:26engineers tested the plates
13:27against anti-tank rifle rounds
13:29and high-explosive shells.
13:31Results were positive.
13:33Hitler personally approved
13:35the program in February 1943.
13:38Orders went out.
13:39Every Panzer III,
13:41every Panzer IV,
13:42every assault gun
13:43coming off the line
13:44would carry Schützen as standard.
13:47Later in the war,
13:48when steel grew scarce,
13:50the Wehrmacht switched
13:51to heavy wire mesh
13:52on the western front,
13:53lighter, cheaper,
13:55and against shaped charges
13:56nearly as effective.
13:58The Germans believed
14:00they had answered the problem.
14:01They had not.
14:03Because the problem
14:04was never the warhead.
14:05The problem was the number
14:07of warheads
14:08and the system
14:09that produced them.
14:10And to understand
14:12that system,
14:13you need to see
14:14a single moment
14:15that happened seven months
14:16before any bazooka
14:17reached Tunisia.
14:18A moment that tells you
14:20more about why Germany
14:21lost the production race
14:22than any factory statistic
14:24ever could.
14:26Aberdeen Proving Ground,
14:28Maryland,
14:28May 1942.
14:30Two men are standing
14:32in a field
14:32with a steel tube,
14:34a handful of rockets,
14:35and a target,
14:36a moving tank.
14:38One of them is
14:39Captain Leslie Skinner,
14:40a rocket engineer.
14:41The other is
14:43Lieutenant Edward Uhl,
14:4424 years old,
14:46fresh out of Lehigh University
14:47with an engineering degree.
14:49They are,
14:50at this moment,
14:51the entirety
14:52of the United States Army's
14:53rocket weapons program.
14:55Two men.
14:57The tube they are holding
14:59was salvaged from a scrap pile.
15:01The sights on top
15:02were bent that morning
15:03from a wire coat hanger.
15:05The rockets are modified grenades
15:07with small motors attached.
15:09The whole thing looks like
15:10something built
15:11in a high school shop class.
15:13They fire.
15:14The rocket hits the moving tank.
15:16They fire again.
15:18Another hit.
15:20Across the field,
15:21five competing designs,
15:23spigot mortars,
15:24the Army's favorite approach,
15:26fire at the same target.
15:28All five miss.
15:30At that moment,
15:32Brigadier General Gladion Barnes,
15:34head of Ordnance Research
15:35and Development,
15:36happens to walk past
15:37with a group of visiting officers.
15:40He sees the smoke,
15:41hears the noise,
15:42comes over.
15:44Skinner,
15:45who understands
15:46that this is probably
15:47the only chance
15:47he will ever get,
15:49hands the General the launcher.
15:51Barnes shoulders it,
15:52aims at the tank,
15:53and fires.
15:55First shot.
15:57Direct hit.
15:59Within the hour,
16:00the weapon is ordered
16:00into production.
16:02General Electric receives
16:03the contract.
16:045,000 launchers
16:05in 30 days.
16:07They deliver
16:08with 89 minutes to spare.
16:10I want you to hold
16:12that timeline in your head.
16:14Scrap heap tube in May.
16:165,000 launchers in June.
16:19Because what happened next
16:20is the part that no Schurzen
16:22could stop.
16:23By the end of 1942,
16:25American factories
16:26had produced over 112,000
16:28M1 bazookas.
16:30When the M1A1
16:32improved model
16:33entered production,
16:34nearly 60,000 more
16:36rolled off the line.
16:37Then came the M9,
16:39the version paratroopers
16:40could break in half
16:41and jump with.
16:43Then the M9A1.
16:45By the time Germany
16:46surrendered,
16:47the United States
16:48had manufactured
16:48more than
16:50460,000 bazookas.
16:52Let that number
16:54breathe for a second.
16:57460,000.
16:59That is not a weapon.
17:01That is a condition
17:02of the battlefield.
17:04It means that
17:05every rifle company
17:06in the American Army
17:07had bazooka teams.
17:09Every airborne regiment
17:10jumped with them.
17:12Every roadblock,
17:13every crossroads,
17:15every farmhouse
17:16where G1 set up a defense
17:17could contain one.
17:19A German tank
17:21rolling down any road
17:22in France,
17:23Belgium,
17:24Holland,
17:24or Germany
17:25had to assume,
17:26had to,
17:27that somewhere
17:28within 100 yards,
17:30a man with a tube
17:31was watching.
17:33And here is the
17:34contrast that matters.
17:35Remember the Panther.
17:38117,000 Reichmarks.
17:4155,000 man-hours
17:43of skilled labor.
17:45Five months
17:46from raw steel
17:47to finished tank.
17:49For that same
17:50investment of resources,
17:51the American system
17:53could produce
17:53enough bazookas
17:54to arm every
17:55infantry platoon
17:56in an entire core.
17:58Thousands of launchers
18:00for the price
18:01of one tank.
18:02A Panther needed fuel.
18:04Fuel that Germany
18:05was running out of
18:06by late 1944.
18:08A bazooka
18:09needed no fuel.
18:10A Panther
18:11needed spare parts
18:12machined
18:13to find tolerances.
18:14A bazooka
18:16had almost no
18:16moving parts.
18:17A panther
18:18broke down
18:19on the march.
18:20The final drives
18:21were notorious.
18:22The interleaved
18:23road wheels
18:23clogged with mud
18:24and froze in winter.
18:26A bazooka
18:27could be carried
18:28through a swamp,
18:29dropped in a river,
18:30dried off,
18:31and fired.
18:32The weapon
18:33was simple.
18:34The system
18:35behind it
18:35was overwhelming.
18:37And the men
18:38sitting inside
18:38those schutzen-draped
18:40panzafors,
18:41scanning every tree line
18:42for a flash
18:43they might never see,
18:44were beginning
18:45to understand something
18:46that no amount
18:47of bolt-on armor
18:48could fix.
18:50But numbers alone
18:51do not explain
18:52the fear.
18:53Half a million bazookas
18:54distributed across
18:55a continent
18:56are a strategic problem.
18:58What turns a strategic
18:59problem into a visceral,
19:01gut-level dread
19:02is terrain.
19:04The kind of terrain
19:05that takes every advantage
19:06a tank possesses
19:08and erases it.
19:11The kind of terrain
19:12where a panther's
19:132,000-meter gun
19:14is useless
19:15because you cannot
19:16see past the next hedge,
19:17where 45 tons of armor
19:19make you not safer
19:21but slower,
19:22louder,
19:23more blind.
19:24That terrain
19:25was waiting for them
19:26in Normandy.
19:27And it had a name
19:29that every German tanker
19:30who survived it
19:31remembered
19:32for the rest of his life.
19:34June, 1944,
19:36Normandy.
19:38The Allied armies
19:39are ashore,
19:40the beachheads
19:41are linked,
19:41and now begins
19:43the push inland.
19:44For the German tank crews
19:46rushing west
19:47to contain the breakout,
19:48the map says one thing.
19:50Gently rolling farmland.
19:52Open enough
19:53for armored maneuver.
19:54Perfect for the long gun.
19:57The map is lying.
19:59What the map does not show,
20:00what no map can show,
20:02is the bocage.
20:05Hedgerows.
20:06Not the kind of hedge
20:07you trim in a garden.
20:08These are walls.
20:11Earthen banks
20:12three to five feet high,
20:13packed hard over centuries,
20:16topped with tangles
20:17of hawthorn,
20:18oak root,
20:18and bramble
20:19so thick
20:20a man cannot push through them.
20:22Between the hedgerows,
20:24fields,
20:24the size of a tennis court.
20:26Between the fields,
20:28sunken lanes
20:29barely wide enough
20:30for a single vehicle,
20:31with no room to turn,
20:33no room to reverse,
20:34and visibility
20:35that ends
20:36where the next hedge begins.
20:38Thirty yards.
20:39Fifty,
20:40if you are lucky.
20:41For an infantryman,
20:43the bocage is hell.
20:44For a tank crew,
20:46it is something worse.
20:47It is a coffin
20:48that moves.
20:50Imagine it
20:51from inside a panther.
20:52You are buttoned up,
20:54hatches sealed,
20:55because German snipers
20:56and riflemen
20:57are killing
20:57exposed tank commanders
20:59at such a rate
20:59that the order
21:00has come down
21:01to stay closed.
21:02You are peering
21:03through a viewport
21:04the size of a paperback novel.
21:06The hedgerow to your left
21:08is a solid green wall.
21:09The hedgerow to your right
21:11is the same.
21:12Ahead,
21:13the lane curves
21:14and you cannot see past it.
21:16Behind you,
21:18another panther idles,
21:19waiting.
21:20You have no room
21:21to maneuver.
21:23Your 2,000 meter gun,
21:24the weapon
21:25that made you lethal
21:26in open country,
21:27is useless,
21:28because there is nothing
21:292,000 meters away.
21:31Everything is close.
21:33Everything is the range
21:34at which a bazooka kills.
21:36And you know,
21:38you know with certainty,
21:39that somewhere
21:40in that green wall,
21:42behind that bank of earth,
21:43inside that stone barn
21:45at the end of the lane,
21:47someone is watching you
21:48through a gap
21:49no wider than a fist,
21:51with a tube on his shoulder
21:52and a rocket loaded.
21:55You will not hear the shot.
21:57You will not see the flash
21:58until it is too late.
22:00The rocket motor burns out
22:02inside the launcher.
22:03The projectile crosses
22:0530 yards in silence.
22:07By the time your brain
22:08registers the sound
22:09of the impact,
22:10the copper jet
22:11has already entered the hull.
22:13This is what the bocage
22:15did to the equation
22:16German tankers had mastered.
22:18It did not change the weapon.
22:20It changed the geometry.
22:22In the open,
22:24a panther could spot
22:24a bazooka team
22:25at 300 meters,
22:27traverse the turret,
22:28and cut them down
22:29with the coaxial machine gun
22:30before they ever fired.
22:32In the bocage,
22:33there were no 300 meters.
22:36There was no spotting.
22:37There was only the next hedgerow
22:39and the question
22:41of what was behind it.
22:43The Americans learned
22:44this geometry fast.
22:46Within weeks of the landings,
22:47infantry commanders
22:48in Normandy
22:49had rebuilt their tactics
22:50around a principle
22:51so simple
22:52it barely needed a name.
22:54The infantry
22:55goes first.
22:57Riflemen scouted
22:58ahead of the tanks,
22:59clearing each hedgerow
23:00field by field,
23:02flushing out
23:02anti-tank teams
23:03before the armor
23:04rolled through.
23:06Major General Charles Gerhardt
23:08of the 29th Infantry Division
23:10filed a report
23:11in early August,
23:12noting that his infantry
23:13cleaned out enemy bazookas
23:15and panzerfausts
23:16from the hedgerows
23:16before they could get a shot
23:18at American tanks.
23:19The system worked.
23:22American tank losses
23:23in units that used
23:24proper infantry tank coordination
23:26dropped sharply.
23:28But turn that tactic around.
23:30Look at it from the German side.
23:32What the Americans were doing
23:34to protect their Shermans,
23:35American bazooka teams
23:37were doing to German Panthers.
23:39In reverse.
23:40Small teams of two men
23:42tucked behind a hedgerow
23:44dug into the base
23:45of an earthen bank,
23:46invisible until the moment
23:48they fired.
23:49They didn't need
23:50to be brave for long.
23:51They needed to be brave
23:52for five seconds,
23:54the time it took
23:55to shoulder the tube,
23:56acquire the target,
23:58and squeeze the trigger.
24:00Five seconds,
24:01and a hundred thousand
24:02Reichsmark Panther burned.
24:04And there was nothing
24:05random about it.
24:07This was doctrine.
24:09American infantry training
24:10put the bazooka
24:11into the hands of men
24:12who practiced with it,
24:13who fired it on ranges,
24:15who understood its backblast,
24:17its arming distance,
24:19its drop at range.
24:20These were not
24:21desperate civilians
24:22grabbing a tube
24:23for the first time.
24:25These were trained teams,
24:27embedded in squads,
24:28coordinated with riflemen
24:29who suppressed
24:30the tank's infantry escort
24:32while the bazooka man
24:33moved into position.
24:34The weapon was simple.
24:36The system that delivered it
24:38was not.
24:39By July,
24:40the pattern had carved itself
24:42into the instincts
24:42of every German tank crew
24:44in Normandy.
24:44You did not advance
24:46without infantry
24:47walking ahead
24:48to clear the hedgerows.
24:49And infantry was something
24:50Germany was running short of.
24:52You did not stop in a lane
24:54because a stationary tank
24:56was a dead tank.
24:57You did not pop your hatch
24:59to look around
25:00because a rifleman
25:01would put a bullet
25:02through your face
25:03before you registered
25:04the sunlight.
25:05You fired your machine guns
25:07at every shadow,
25:08and you prayed
25:09that the shadow you missed
25:10was not the one
25:11holding a tube.
25:13The bocage had turned
25:15the panther from a hunter
25:16into something
25:17it was never designed to be.
25:19Prey.
25:20A loud, slow,
25:22half-blind animal
25:23trying to navigate
25:24a world built for predators
25:26who weighed 160 pounds
25:27and moved on two feet.
25:30And still the worst
25:31was six months away.
25:32Because in the bocage,
25:34German tankers
25:35at least had this.
25:36It was summer.
25:38The days were long.
25:40There were hours of light.
25:41In December,
25:43in the frozen forests
25:44of the Ardennes,
25:45the days would be short,
25:47the fog would sit
25:48on the roads until noon,
25:49and the German army
25:50would throw its last
25:51armored reserve
25:52into an offensive
25:53that depended on one thing,
25:55speed through American lines.
25:58What they met instead,
26:00at a crossroads
26:01near a pair of Belgian villages,
26:03would produce
26:04one of the most
26:04extraordinary acts
26:05of courage
26:06in the entire war,
26:07and one of the clearest
26:08demonstrations
26:09of why a tube
26:10was more dangerous
26:11than a tank.
26:12December 16th, 1944.
26:15The Ardennes Forest.
26:17At 5.30 in the morning,
26:19the eastern horizon explodes.
26:212,000 German artillery pieces
26:23open fire
26:24along an 80-mile front.
26:26Searchlights bounce off
26:28the low clouds,
26:29turning the fog
26:29an eerie white,
26:31a technique the Germans call
26:33artificial moonlight.
26:35Behind the barrage,
26:36three German armies
26:37begin to move.
26:39Over 200,000 men.
26:41Nearly 1,000 tanks
26:43and assault guns.
26:45Hitler's last gamble.
26:47A thrust through
26:48the weakest point
26:49in the Allied line,
26:50aimed at the port of Antwerp,
26:52designed to split
26:53the British and American
26:54armies in half.
26:56The plan depends
26:57on one thing.
26:58Speed.
27:00Punch through
27:01the thin American
27:02screening force
27:02in the first hours.
27:04Seize the road junctions
27:05before reinforcements
27:06arrive.
27:07Reach the Mews River
27:08bridges in three days.
27:11Everything hinges
27:12on the panzers
27:13breaking through fast.
27:15Standing in the path
27:16of the main armored thrust
27:17are two American
27:18infantry divisions,
27:20the 2nd and the 99th.
27:22They have almost
27:23no tank support.
27:25What they have
27:26is rifles,
27:27machine guns,
27:28anti-tank mines,
27:29artillery on call,
27:31and bazookas.
27:32Hundreds of bazookas,
27:34distributed across
27:35every company,
27:36carried by men
27:37who have trained
27:38with them
27:38and know what
27:39they can do.
27:40The two divisions
27:41anchor their defense
27:42on a pair of
27:43Belgian villages
27:44so small
27:45they share a hyphen.
27:47Klinkelt-Rosherat.
27:49Stonehouses,
27:50narrow streets.
27:52A crossroads
27:53that controls
27:53the only paved road
27:54to the west.
27:55If the German armor
27:57takes these villages,
27:59the road to the Meuse
28:00lies open.
28:01If the Americans hold,
28:03the timetable breaks.
28:05What happens next
28:07is one of the most
28:07intense close-quarters
28:09battles between
28:10infantry and armor
28:11in the entire war.
28:12The 12th SS Panzer Division,
28:15Hitlerjugend,
28:16one of the most
28:17fanatical and experienced
28:19armored units
28:20in the German army,
28:21sends its panthers
28:22straight down the main road
28:23into Rochovat.
28:25They are in a hurry.
28:26The timetable
28:27is already slipping.
28:29They make the decision
28:31that the Bokas
28:31should have taught them
28:32never to make.
28:33They advance without
28:34infantry clearing the way.
28:37The Panthers come in column,
28:39fast,
28:40engines roaring,
28:41main guns traversing,
28:43and from both sides
28:44of the road,
28:45from behind stone walls,
28:46from cellar windows,
28:48from rubble piles,
28:49from foxholes
28:50dug into frozen ground,
28:51American bazooka teams
28:53open fire.
28:55The geometry is Normandy
28:56all over again,
28:57but worse.
28:59The streets are narrower
29:00than hedgerow lanes.
29:01The stone buildings
29:03channel the tanks
29:04into killing corridors
29:05with no room to turn.
29:06When the lead panther is hit,
29:08the ones behind it
29:09cannot reverse.
29:10The road is blocked.
29:12They are trapped,
29:13and the bazooka teams
29:14know it.
29:15The fighting lasts
29:16through the night
29:17and into the next day.
29:18It is close enough
29:20that men throw
29:20thermite grenades
29:21onto engine decks.
29:23Close enough
29:23that one crippled
29:24panzer 470
29:26is set on fire
29:27using a jerry can
29:28of gasoline
29:29and a thermite grenade
29:30tossed by hand
29:31onto its rear armor.
29:33Close enough
29:34that tank crews
29:35who bail out
29:36are shot
29:36before they hit the ground.
29:38By the time
29:39the 12th SS Panzer Division
29:41pulls back,
29:42the cost is staggering.
29:4421 German armored vehicles
29:46destroyed by bazooka teams
29:47alone.
29:4827 more
29:49knocked out
29:50by anti-tank guns
29:51and mines.
29:52The division
29:53that was supposed
29:54to blast through
29:55to the Meuse
29:55in three days
29:56has been gutted
29:57at the front door.
29:58The 1st SS Panzer Corps
30:00is forced to change
30:02its entire axis
30:03of advance.
30:0421 armored vehicles.
30:07destroyed by men
30:08on foot
30:08with tubes.
30:11And in the middle
30:12of that carnage
30:12one man's actions
30:14tell the story
30:15of the entire battle
30:16in miniature.
30:18You met him
30:19in the opening
30:19of this story.
30:21William Soderman,
30:22the butcher
30:22from Connecticut.
30:24But now you have
30:25the context
30:25to understand
30:26what he did.
30:27When the first
30:28five Panthers
30:29rolled toward
30:30his crossroads
30:31on the evening
30:31of December 17th,
30:33Soderman's loader
30:34had already been hit
30:35by artillery.
30:36He was alone
30:37with a weapon
30:37designed for two.
30:39He had no radio
30:41to call for help.
30:42He had no anti-tank gun
30:44behind him.
30:45He had a tube,
30:46a few rockets,
30:47and the frozen ground.
30:50He waited
30:50until the lead Panther
30:51was at point-blank range,
30:53close enough
30:54to feel the engine heat.
30:56He stood up,
30:58fired,
30:58and set it burning.
31:00He could not reload
31:01fast enough
31:02to hit the second tank.
31:03He pressed himself
31:05flat and let them pass.
31:07Then he stayed.
31:09All night,
31:10under fire,
31:12alone.
31:13At dawn,
31:15five more tanks came.
31:17Soderman ran along
31:18a ditch to the road,
31:19stood in full view
31:20of the column,
31:21and fired again.
31:23The lead tank stopped.
31:25The others reversed.
31:26He then turned his bazooka
31:28on a German infantry platoon,
31:30killing at least three men
31:31and scattering the rest.
31:33When a third wave of tanks
31:35appeared as his company
31:36was withdrawing,
31:37he did it a final time.
31:39One last rocket,
31:41one last tank,
31:42before machine gun fire
31:44tore into his shoulder
31:45and he dragged himself
31:47to the American lines
31:48through a drainage ditch.
31:50Three separate engagements.
31:52Three lead tanks stopped.
31:55One man.
31:58But here is the fact
31:59that I want you to hold longer
32:01than any other in this story.
32:03William Soderman
32:04was not a ranger.
32:06He was not airborne.
32:07He was not a specially trained
32:09anti-tank gunner.
32:11He was a private first class,
32:14the second lowest enlisted rank
32:16in the United States Army.
32:19Before the war,
32:20he cut meat in a shop
32:21in Connecticut.
32:23The system had given him a tube,
32:25taught him how to aim it,
32:26and placed him at a crossroads.
32:29That was enough.
32:30And that was the deepest source
32:33of German terror.
32:34Not that one man could stop a tank,
32:36but that any man could.
32:39Any ditch, any doorway,
32:41any rifleman in any foxhole
32:43might be carrying the weapon
32:45that turned a panther into a pyre.
32:47You could not predict it.
32:49You could not see it.
32:51And you could not armor
32:52against all of them.
32:54But the bazooka's reach
32:55had one more dimension
32:56that no German tanker imagined.
33:00Because one American decided
33:02that if a tube could kill
33:03a tank from a ditch,
33:04it could kill a tank from the sky.
33:07And he proved it
33:08in the most improbable aircraft
33:10ever to destroy a panther.
33:13By the autumn of 1944,
33:15German tank crews in France
33:16had learned the geography of fear.
33:19It came from below.
33:21From ditches, cellars,
33:23hedgerows, rubble, foxholes,
33:25anywhere a man could crouch unseen
33:27with a tube on his shoulder.
33:29They scanned the ground.
33:31They fired into shadows.
33:33They demanded infantry escorts
33:35before they would advance
33:36a single meter.
33:38They did not look up.
33:41Major Charles Carpenter was,
33:43by every measure,
33:44the last man
33:45who should have been
33:45destroying tanks.
33:47Before the war,
33:48he taught history
33:49at a high school in Illinois.
33:51In 1942,
33:52at the age of 30,
33:54he enlisted and trained
33:55as a pilot.
33:56Not a fighter pilot,
33:58not a bomber pilot,
33:59but an artillery spotter.
34:01His assignment,
34:03fly low and slow
34:04over enemy territory
34:05in an L-4 grasshopper,
34:08the military version
34:09of the Piper Cub.
34:10Fabric skin,
34:12no armor,
34:13no weapons,
34:15two seats,
34:16a top speed
34:17barely faster
34:18than a car on a highway.
34:20His job
34:21was to look,
34:23report,
34:24and get out.
34:26Carpenter had a different idea.
34:28He had watched
34:29other observation pilots
34:30get shot down,
34:3149 from his own army alone
34:34during the push through France.
34:36He had listened to reports
34:37of German armor
34:38counterattacking
34:39American positions.
34:40And he had noticed something.
34:42The L-4 could fly
34:44low enough
34:45to touch the treetops,
34:47slow enough
34:47to aim carefully,
34:49and quiet enough
34:50to arrive
34:51before anyone
34:51heard it coming.
34:53What it lacked
34:54was a way to kill.
34:56So he built one.
34:58With the help
34:59of an ordnance technician,
35:01Carpenter attached
35:01two M-1 bazookas
35:03to the wing struts
35:04of his grasshopper.
35:06Each launcher
35:06was wired to a firing switch
35:08in the cockpit.
35:09He tested them,
35:10found they worked,
35:12and went hunting.
35:13His first kill
35:15was a German armored car.
35:17He came back,
35:18landed,
35:19and decided
35:20two tubes
35:21were not enough.
35:22He added four more,
35:24three on each wing,
35:25and upgraded
35:26to the improved
35:27M-9 model
35:28firing high-explosive
35:30anti-tank rockets
35:31that could punch through
35:32nearly four inches
35:33of armor plate.
35:35He painted a name
35:36on the fuselage,
35:38Rosie the Rocketer.
35:40His technique was insane
35:42by any conventional measure.
35:43He would find a target
35:45from altitude,
35:46then corkscrew down
35:47in a tight spiral
35:48to throw off ground fire.
35:50At roughly 100 meters,
35:52close enough to see
35:53the rivets on a turret,
35:54he would flatten out,
35:56aim the nose of the aircraft
35:57directly at the tank,
35:58and fire.
36:00Then he would pull up hard
36:01and climb out of range
36:02before the crew
36:03could react.
36:04If he missed,
36:06he would circle
36:07and do it again.
36:09Remember this.
36:10The aircraft he was flying
36:12was made of fabric
36:13and steel tubing.
36:15A single rifle bullet
36:16could bring it down.
36:18He had no parachute
36:19that would open
36:20at the altitudes he flew.
36:22Every dive was a bet
36:23that the Germans
36:24on the ground
36:25would be too stunned
36:26to aim straight
36:27in the three seconds
36:28it took him
36:28to fire and climb.
36:30September 20, 1944.
36:33The Battle of Arakor,
36:35near Nancy,
36:35in eastern France.
36:37The German 5th Panzer Army
36:39launches a surprise
36:40counterattack
36:40against elements
36:41of Patton's
36:424th Armored Division.
36:44Fog blankets
36:45the countryside.
36:46Carpenter takes off
36:47but cannot see the ground.
36:49For hours,
36:50he circles blind
36:51above the clouds
36:52searching for a break.
36:54Around noon,
36:55the fog begins to thin
36:56and below him,
36:58emerging from the mist
36:59like gray beetles
37:00on a white tablecloth,
37:02Carpenter sees them.
37:03A company of Panther tanks
37:05and armored vehicles
37:06pushing toward Arakor
37:07in column.
37:09He dives.
37:10Through small arms fire
37:12from German infantry,
37:13through the tracer rounds
37:14reaching up
37:15at his fabric wings,
37:16Carpenter makes
37:17pass after pass,
37:19firing bazookas
37:20into the column.
37:21He empties
37:22all six tubes.
37:24He flies back
37:25to a field,
37:26reloads,
37:27takes off,
37:28and does it again.
37:30And then a third time.
37:31In one afternoon,
37:33he fires at least
37:3416 rockets
37:35at German armor.
37:36By evening,
37:37he is credited
37:38with immobilizing
37:39two Panthers
37:39and several armored vehicles,
37:41and the counterattack
37:43has stalled.
37:44A history teacher.
37:46In a canvas airplane,
37:48with bazookas
37:49strapped to the wings.
37:51By the end of the war,
37:52Carpenter was credited
37:53with destroying
37:54or disabling
37:5514 tanks,
37:56including two Tigers,
37:58along with numerous
37:59armored cars
37:59and vehicles.
38:01That made him
38:02a tank ace
38:02in an aircraft
38:03that had no business
38:04being within a mile
38:05of a tank.
38:07The newspapers back home
38:08printed the line
38:09that said it all.
38:11Bazooka Charlie
38:12used to teach history.
38:13Now he is making it.
38:15But Carpenter's story
38:17matters for a reason
38:18beyond the sheer
38:19audacity of it.
38:20Pay attention
38:21to what it reveals
38:22about the system.
38:24Nobody ordered
38:25Charles Carpenter
38:26to arm his airplane.
38:27No general
38:28approved the modification.
38:30No engineering team
38:31designed the mount.
38:33A pilot,
38:34a technician,
38:35and a set of bazookas
38:37from the nearest supply dump.
38:38That was the entire
38:39development program.
38:41The American system
38:42did not merely tolerate
38:44this kind of improvisation.
38:45It rewarded it.
38:47Carpenter received
38:48the Silver Star.
38:50His commanders
38:51used his reports
38:52to plan operations.
38:54Patton's staff
38:54knew him by name.
38:56Now imagine
38:57the same scenario
38:58in the German military.
39:00A Luftwaffe observation pilot
39:02unbolts the cowling
39:04of his Fiesler Storch,
39:05welds on a pair
39:06of Panzerschrecks
39:07without authorization,
39:08and flies combat sorties
39:10against Allied armor.
39:12In the German command structure
39:14of 1944,
39:16this does not earn a medal.
39:17It earns a court martial.
39:19The difference is the system.
39:21The American system
39:23pushed the bazooka
39:24down to the lowest level,
39:25to privates,
39:27to sergeants,
39:28to spotter pilots,
39:29and then trusted those men
39:31to find ways to use it
39:32that no planner
39:33in Washington had imagined.
39:35The result was a threat
39:37that kept mutating,
39:38kept expanding,
39:40kept appearing in places
39:41German tankers
39:41had never thought to look.
39:43The ground.
39:44The hedgerow.
39:46The cellar window.
39:47And now,
39:48the sky.
39:50Every direction
39:51was dangerous.
39:52And that fact,
39:54the totality of it,
39:55the feeling that death
39:56could come from anywhere,
39:58at any time,
39:59delivered by anyone,
40:00brings us to the deepest layer
40:02of the answer.
40:03The layer that had nothing to do
40:05with shaped charges
40:06or production numbers.
40:08It had to do with what happens
40:09inside the mind of a man
40:10who realizes that the steel around him
40:13is no longer keeping him safe.
40:16We have followed this story
40:17through six parts.
40:19You have seen what the bazooka could do,
40:21in the bocage,
40:22at the crossroads,
40:24from the sky.
40:25You have seen the numbers,
40:27the cost,
40:28the speed of production
40:29that flooded the battlefield
40:30with half a million tubes.
40:32You have seen what one man
40:34with one rocket
40:35could do to a column of panthers.
40:37Now I want to take you
40:39inside the tank.
40:41Because the answer
40:42to the question in the title,
40:43why German tank crews
40:45feared bazookas
40:45more than Sherman's,
40:46does not live in ballistics tables
40:49or production charts.
40:50It lives in the space
40:52between a man's ears,
40:53in the six inches
40:55behind his eyes,
40:56in the place where
40:57rational thought
40:58meets animal fear.
41:00And it comes down
41:01to one word,
41:03predictability.
41:04A Sherman was predictable.
41:06You heard it.
41:07The continental radial engine
41:09had a distinctive sound
41:10that carried across open ground.
41:12You saw it.
41:14The high, boxy turret
41:15threw a silhouette
41:16that was unmistakable
41:17at a thousand meters.
41:19You tracked it.
41:20It moved on roads,
41:22in formations,
41:23at speeds you could estimate.
41:25You planned against it.
41:27Range, angle,
41:29first shot,
41:30second shot,
41:31if the first missed.
41:33Fighting a Sherman
41:34was terrifying
41:35the way all combat
41:36is terrifying.
41:37But it was a terror
41:38with structure.
41:39You knew where the threat was.
41:41You knew what to do.
41:43Your training worked.
41:44Your armor worked.
41:46Your gun worked.
41:48The contract held.
41:50Steel protected you.
41:52Skill saved you.
41:53The better crew won.
41:55The bazooka offered
41:57none of that.
41:58You did not hear it.
42:00The rocket motor
42:01burned out inside the tube.
42:03By the time the projectile
42:04crossed the gap
42:05between a foxhole
42:06and your hull,
42:07it was coasting in silence.
42:09You did not see it.
42:11The shooter was a single man,
42:13behind a wall,
42:14in a ditch,
42:14inside a building,
42:16occupying a space
42:17no larger than
42:18a crouching child.
42:20You did not track it
42:21because there was
42:22nothing to track
42:23until the moment of impact.
42:25You did not plan against it
42:26because it could come
42:27from any direction,
42:29front,
42:29side,
42:30rear,
42:31above,
42:31at any moment.
42:33There was no formation
42:34to read,
42:35no engine noise
42:36to locate,
42:37no silhouette
42:38to identify.
42:39There was only the hit.
42:41And the hit
42:43was different.
42:44Here is a number
42:45that tells the story
42:46in a single breath.
42:48In the American
42:49First Army's records
42:50between Normandy
42:51and the end of the war,
42:53infantry anti-tank rockets
42:54accounted for 13%
42:56of all tank losses.
42:58But they caused
42:5921% of all crew casualties.
43:02Read that again.
43:0413% of the tanks,
43:0621% of the dead and wounded.
43:09The rockets were killing crews
43:11at a rate far higher
43:12than their share
43:13of destroyed vehicles.
43:15The reason is what
43:16a shaped charge does
43:17when it penetrates a hole.
43:19A conventional armor-piercing shell
43:21punches through steel
43:22and continues
43:23as a solid projectile,
43:24lethal but contained.
43:26A shaped-charged jet
43:28is different.
43:29It enters the crew compartment
43:31as a stream of superheated copper
43:33and fragmented steel,
43:35spall,
43:35that sprays through the interior
43:37in every direction.
43:39It ignites ammunition.
43:40It ignites fuel.
43:42It ignites clothing,
43:43skin, air.
43:45The crew does not bail out.
43:47The crew burns.
43:49German tankers knew this.
43:51They had seen it happen
43:52to other crews.
43:53They had heard the screaming
43:55from inside hatches
43:56that would not open
43:57because the metal had warped.
43:59They knew that a bazooka hit
44:00did not simply stop the tank.
44:02It turned the tank
44:04into an oven.
44:05And they could not
44:07stop it from happening.
44:09This is the core of the fear
44:11and it is worth stating plainly.
44:13A Sherman was a problem
44:15with a solution.
44:17You could outrange it,
44:18out-armor it,
44:19out-gun it.
44:20Every engagement had an answer
44:22and the panther's crew knew
44:24what the answer was.
44:25A bazooka was a problem
44:27without a solution.
44:29You could weld shirts
44:30into your hull
44:31and the Americans would aim
44:32for the turret ring
44:33or the rear deck
44:35or wait until you turned
44:36and hit the backplate
44:38where no skirt could reach.
44:40You could demand infantry escorts
44:42and infantry was the one thing
44:44Germany was running out of
44:46faster than tanks.
44:48You could button up tight
44:49and scan through your viewport
44:51and you would see nothing
44:52because the viewport
44:53was the size of an envelope
44:55and the man with the tube
44:56was behind a wall
44:57you couldn't see through.
44:59There was no answer.
45:01That is what made it different
45:03from every other threat
45:04on the battlefield.
45:05Against a Sherman,
45:07a German tank crew
45:08was a combatant.
45:09Against a bazooka,
45:11a German tank crew
45:12was a target.
45:14And the behavioral change
45:15was visible.
45:17By late 1944,
45:19German armor in the west
45:20had begun to move
45:21the way prey moves.
45:23Slowly.
45:24Cautiously.
45:26Panthers that could cover ground
45:28at 30 miles an hour
45:29crept through villages
45:30at walking speed.
45:32Turrets swiveling
45:33in continuous arcs.
45:35Machine guns firing at windows
45:36no one was behind.
45:39Tanks that were designed
45:40to exploit breakthroughs
45:41sat idling behind tree lines,
45:44waiting for infantry
45:45that might never come.
45:47Crews that had once charged
45:49across open fields
45:50in wedge formation
45:51now refused to advance
45:53down a road
45:54until every building
45:55within a hundred meters
45:56had been cleared.
45:58The bazooka
45:59had not destroyed the panther.
46:01It had done something
46:02more efficient.
46:03It had made the panther behave
46:05as if it were already destroyed.
46:08Robbing it of speed.
46:09Of aggression.
46:10Of the very qualities
46:12that made a tank
46:13a tank.
46:14A panther,
46:16moving at walking speed,
46:17buttoned up,
46:18spraying machine gun fire
46:19at shadows,
46:20was not a weapon.
46:21It was a box.
46:23A loud,
46:24slow,
46:25expensive box
46:26that consumed fuel
46:27Germany could not spare
46:28and occupied a crew
46:30of five men
46:31who could no longer do
46:32what they had been trained
46:33to do.
46:35460,000 tubes,
46:3713 pounds each,
46:39carried by men
46:40Germany would never see
46:41until it was too late.
46:43That is why
46:44German tank crews
46:45feared the bazooka
46:46more than the Sherman.
46:48The Sherman was war.
46:50The bazooka
46:51was dread.
46:53And now there is
46:54one thing left.
46:55What happened to the men
46:57who carried those tubes?
46:58And what they left behind?
47:01The morning of December 19th,
47:031944.
47:04Rocherath, Belgium.
47:06The fog has lifted.
47:07The road through the village
47:09is impassable.
47:10Not because of rubble,
47:11but because of steel.
47:13The blackened hulls
47:14of Panthers and Panzer IVs
47:16line both sides
47:17of the street.
47:18Some still smoldering,
47:19their hatches open,
47:21their turrets frozen
47:22at odd angles.
47:24The stone walls
47:25of the houses
47:25are pocked
47:26with shell impacts
47:27and scorched
47:28where burning fuel
47:29splashed against them.
47:31The snow between the wrecks
47:33is dark
47:33with soot and oil.
47:36American soldiers
47:37from the 2nd Infantry Division
47:38move through the village,
47:40counting.
47:40Twenty-one armored vehicles
47:42destroyed by bazooka teams.
47:44Twenty-seven by guns and mines.
47:47Forty-eight in all.
47:49The 12th SS Panzer Division,
47:52one of the most feared
47:53armored formations
47:54in the German army,
47:55has been broken
47:56at a crossroads
47:57by men on foot.
47:59William Soderman
48:00is not there to see it.
48:02He is on his way
48:03to a field hospital,
48:04his right shoulder
48:05shattered by machine gun fire,
48:07riding in the back
48:08of a jeep,
48:08on a road that is open
48:10only because he helped
48:11keep it open.
48:12He is 24 years old.
48:15He does not know yet
48:16that what he did
48:17at that crossroads
48:18will earn him
48:19the Medal of Honor.
48:19Or that ten months later,
48:22on an October afternoon
48:23in 1945,
48:25he will stand
48:26on the White House lawn
48:27while President Harry Truman
48:29places the ribbon
48:30around his neck.
48:31He will leave the army
48:33as a private first class.
48:35He will go home
48:36to West Haven, Connecticut,
48:38marry a woman named Virginia,
48:40and raise two children.
48:42He will spend the rest
48:43of his working life
48:44at the Veterans Affairs
48:45Hospital in his hometown,
48:48caring for men
48:49who came back from wars
48:50the way he came back from his.
48:52He will not talk much
48:54about Racherath.
48:55He will die on October 20, 1980,
48:59at the age of 68,
49:01and be buried
49:02at Oak Grove Cemetery,
49:04a short drive
49:05from the butcher shop
49:06where he once cut meat.
49:08Charles Carpenter,
49:09Bazooka Charlie,
49:11will survive the war
49:12with a silver star
49:13and a reputation
49:14that followed him
49:16like a contrail.
49:17The history teacher
49:19who made history.
49:21His L-4 grasshopper,
49:23Rosie the Rocketer,
49:25will pass through
49:26a series of owners
49:27over the decades
49:27until it ends up
49:28in a garage in Oregon
49:29where a retired engineer
49:31will begin restoring it.
49:33Fabric, struts,
49:34and the mounting brackets
49:36where six bazookas
49:37once hung.
49:38And Lieutenant Edward Ewell,
49:40the 24-year-old
49:41who picked up a steel tube
49:42from a scrap pile
49:43in Maryland
49:44and turned it into
49:45the most produced
49:46anti-tank weapon
49:47in American history,
49:48will leave the army
49:50as a lieutenant colonel.
49:52He will go on
49:53to lead Fairchild Industries,
49:55the defense contractor
49:56that built the A-10 Thunderbolt,
49:58the Warthog,
50:00an aircraft designed
50:01from the ground up
50:02to do,
50:02at industrial scale,
50:04what Bazooka Charlie
50:05once did with
50:06bailing wire and nerve,
50:07kill tanks from the sky.
50:11Ewell will live
50:12to be 92.
50:14He will die in 2010
50:15in a small town
50:17on the eastern shore
50:18of Maryland,
50:19a quiet man
50:20who had changed
50:21the physics of the battlefield
50:22before his 25th birthday.
50:25The bazooka itself
50:27will evolve.
50:28The M-20 Super Bazooka,
50:30with a larger warhead
50:31and greater range,
50:33will see service in Korea.
50:35The principal Ewell
50:36and Skinner proved
50:37in that Maryland field
50:38that a single soldier
50:39can carry a weapon
50:40capable of killing
50:41the heaviest vehicle
50:42on the battlefield,
50:43will become the foundation
50:45of every anti-tank
50:46rocket system
50:47that followed.
50:48The RPG,
50:50the tow,
50:51the javelin,
50:52the descendants of a tube
50:54made from scrapyard steel
50:55with sights bent
50:57from a coat hanger.
50:58But the story that matters
51:00is not the weapon's legacy.
51:02It is the moment,
51:03repeated thousands of times
51:05across hundreds of
51:06villages and crossroads
51:07and frozen roads,
51:08when one man
51:10crouched behind a wall
51:11with a 13-pound tube
51:13and faced a machine
51:14that outweighed him
51:15by a factor of 300.
51:18The math said he should lose.
51:20The math said steel beats flesh.
51:23The math said a 45-ton panther
51:25should roll over
51:26a private first class
51:27from Connecticut
51:28the way a boot
51:29rolls over a cigarette.
51:31The math was wrong.
51:34And every German tank crew
51:36who survived the war
51:37knew it was wrong.
51:39They had felt it
51:40in the way they drove.
51:42Slowly,
51:43fearfully,
51:44flinching at every shadow.
51:46They had felt it
51:47in the way they scanned the world
51:49through a viewport
51:50no bigger than their hand,
51:52looking for a flash
51:53they would never see in time.
51:55They had felt it
51:56in the silence
51:57before the hit.
51:57A Sherman
51:59they could fight.
52:00A bazooka
52:01they could only fear.
52:04That was the difference.
52:06And 460,000 tubes
52:08made sure
52:09they never forgot it.
52:11Thank you for staying
52:13with this story
52:13for the past hour.
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52:16a fact you didn't know,
52:18a name you'll remember,
52:20a moment that stayed with you,
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52:40And if someone in your family
52:41served in World War II,
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52:49to all of us.
52:50And sometimes,
52:51the best ones come from you.
52:53Until next time.