The Tank Killers: A History of America's World War II Tank Destroyer Force [Hardcover]

Harry Yeide (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2004

The Tank Killers is the story of the American Tank Destroyer Force in North Africa, Italy, and the European Theater during World War II. The tank destroyer (TD) was a bold-if some would say flawed-answer to the challenge posed by the seemingly unstoppable German blitzkrieg. The TD was conceived to be light and fast enough to outmaneuver panzer forces and go where tanks could not. At the same time, the TD would wield the firepower needed to kill any German tank on the battlefield. Indeed, American doctrine stipulated that TDs would fight tanks, while American tanks would concentrate on achieving and exploiting breakthroughs of enemy lines.

The Tank Killers follows the men who fought in the TDs from the formation of the force in 1941 through the victory over the Third Reich in 1945. It is a story of American flexibility and pragmatism in military affairs. Tank destroyers were among the very first units to land in North Africa in 1942. Their first vehicles were ad hoc affairs: Halftracks and weapons carriers with guns no better than those on tanks and thin armor affording the crews considerably less protection. Almost immediately, the crews realized that their doctrine was incomplete. They began adapting to circumstances, along with their partners in the infantry and armored divisions. By the time that North Africa was in Allied hands, the TD had become a valued tank fighter, assault gun, and artillery piece. The reconnaissance teams in TD battalions, meanwhile, had established a record for daring operations that they would continue for the rest of the war.

The story continues with the invasion of Italy and finally that of Fortress Europe on 6 June 1944. By now, the brass had decreed that half the force would convert to towed guns, a decision that dogged the affected crews through the end of the war. The TD men encountered increasingly lethal enemies, ever more dangerous panzers that were often vulnerable only to their guns while American tank crews watched in frustration as their rounds bounced harmlessly off the thick German armor. They fought under incredibly diverse conditions that demanded constant modification of tactics. Their equipment became ever more deadly. By VE day, the tank destroyer battalions had achieved impressive records, generally with kill/loss rates heavily in their favor. Yet the Army after the war concluded that the concept of a separate TD arm was so fundamentally flawed that not a single battalion existed after November 1946.

The Tank Killers draws heavily on the records of the tank destroyer battalions and the units with which they fought. Veterans of the force add their personal stories

Product Details

• Hardcover: 339 pages
• Publisher: Casemate Publishers and Book Distributors (October 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932033262
• ISBN-13: 978-1932033267
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #730,926 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I am a foreign affairs analyst with the federal government in Washington, DC, and I write military history because the subject has fascinated me since I was a kid. I live with my lovely wife, Nancy, in Hyattsville, Maryland.

My aim and motto is "good books about good stories." My first book, Steel Victory, was published in December 2003 and tells the story of the separate tank battalions in the European Theater of Operations (ETO). The Tank Killers, the remarkable tale of the Tank Destroyer Force, followed in early 2005. This book covers the action in North Africa, Italy, and the ETO. The Longest Battle also hit the shelves about the same time; it is the first history devoted solely to the grinding, bloody battle from Aachen to and across the Roer River between September 1944 and February 1945. Weapons of the Tankers covers not only the divisional and separate tank battalions in all theaters, but also the amphibian tank and tractor battalions in the Pacific. First to the Rhine, a history of the 6th Army Group I wrote with my Francophone friend, Mr. Mark Stout, was published in August 2007. Steeds of Steel, the story of the mechanized cavalry in World War II in all theaters of operations, came out in early 2008, and The Infantry's Armor, the history of the separate armored battalions in all theaters, was published in March 2010. Now available: Fighting Patton: George S. Patton Jr. and His Battles Through the Eyes of His Enemies!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars tank warfare in World War II, February 28, 2005

By 

Henry Berry "Henry Berry" (Southport, CT) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Tank Killers: A History of America's World War II Tank Destroyer Force (Hardcover)

Yeide's "Tank Killers" is "intended...[to be] both a broad history of the Tank Destroyer Force and a representative look into the world of men who fought in the TD battalions." The TDF was formed in the early days of the North Africa campaign when Allied Forces faced the vaunted German Panzers. Involved in the war in Europe on all fronts including the Italian campaign, D-Day, and the invasion of Germany, the TDF always had an eclectic, ad hoc character to it. Faced with the seemingly incongruous requirements of greater mobility than the German tanks to find them and then outmaneuver them and at the same time powerful enough weapons to destroy the enemy tanks, the TDF made do with armed Jeeps, artillery, tanks, anti-tank mines and hand-placed explosives. The Force was filled with personnel with varied specialties and combat experience brought in from varied Army units. As important as the TDF was in taking out the deadly German tanks commonly threatening to stop advancing infantry, the Force was never smoothly integrated into the regular combat forces. It was disbanded shortly after World War II ended. Yeide is an author of a previous work on U. S. tank warfare in Europe whose history of this brief, but crucial Army tank force contains enough material on individual soldiers, tactics, and combat for any World War II and military history buff. What is new and most captivating about it, though, is the continuing innovation and scrappiness of the men of the Tank Destroyer Force as they gained more information about their foe, weapons evolved, and terrains and other conditions changed during the course of the War.

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Invaluable memories of our Greatest Generation, August 29, 2005

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R. ARANT "Toun" (Lanesville, Indiana USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Tank Killers: A History of America's World War II Tank Destroyer Force (Hardcover)

I suspect that I am typical of the most appreciative readers of this history of the Tank Destroyer Force, a proud son of a veteran of Company A of the 701st TD.

"The Tank Killers" put the stories I heard in childhood from my father and his comrades in fresh perspective. The battles at the Faid Pass, Kasserine Pass, El Guettar, and Cassino and Anzio, and on to the Po Valley no doubt inspired many other boys to military service. Harry Yeide's outstanding research and his skills as a writer mean more to us than he probably realizes. The author notes a 1943 report to General Omar Bradley that the men of A/701st TD "stuck it out to the bitter end and were utterly fearless" in their first combat action in North Africa, where they lost 7 killed, six captured, and 42 missing in action. My copy has a place of honor next to the treasured folded flag, the telegram which notified Dad's mother of wounds received at Anzio on 17 March 1944, and the Purple Heart I so naively played with as a boy, not realizing that with a slightly different arc of a single piece of shrapnel, I would never have been born.

Sir Winston Churchill wrote after his campaign in the Sudan, "Those who read the story, and still more those who share the dangers, of a campaign feel that every incident is surrounded with a host of possibilities, any one of which, had it become real, would have changed the whole course of events ... We live in a world of ifs. What happened is singular; what might have happened, legion." The Tank Destroyers all learned that lesson well.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling and extensively researched history, March 6, 2005

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Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Tank Killers: A History of America's World War II Tank Destroyer Force (Hardcover)

The Tank Killers: A History of America's World War II Tank Destroyer Force is an exciting history of the American Tank Destroyer Force (TD) in North Africa, Italy, and the European Theater during World War II, and the men who served in those battalions. Drawing heavily upon internal records and interviews with survivors, author and international affairs analyst Harry Yeide presents the none-too-pretty details of the TD's missions, recounting the saga of the TD from its inception in 1941 until the end of the war in 1945. The invaluable battlefield contribution of the TD gets the in-depth treatment it deserves in this compelling and extensively researched history.