[Milsurplus] OT: Clarence Smoyer gets hero's ride

[Hubert Miller]

Of course I saw the movie "Fury", but I can't say I cared for it much. I thought the story too Hollywood, inauthentic, with gothic misfit characters.
Reading "Spearhead", the story of gunner Clarence Smoyer's war experience, is vastly more captivating, informative, and moving.
Seeing a short article in the AARP Magazine for Oct.-Nov. 2019 alerted me to this later chapter in Smoyer's story.
In February 2019, in a surprise appearance, a rented Sherman tank pulled up at his home to give him a hero's ride to a book signing that day.
video and story:  https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2019/02/22/wwii-veteran-sherman-tank-clarence-smoyer
Smoyer's fame was sealed by the now well known "duel at the Koeln cathedral", where he destroyed a Panther that had just knocked out a Sherman.
The whole incident was filmed by a Signal Corps cameraman who happened to be at the scene.

There is one part to the Koeln story I have wondered about. Both Smoyer's tank and the Panther fired on a civilian car that bumbled into the scene.
What I wondered about: in those years, practically no German civilians owned their own car; only the rich or politically well connected did. So I
wonder what this young woman driver was doing. Where did she even get gas for the car, when the Reich was so short? I don't want to imply any
nefarious doings on her part; it just mystifies me. No one has explained this and it will be unexplained for all time.

I don't want to start a long OT thread here, but I thought some readers might be interested in this WW2 related news item.
-H Miller



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