Death Traps: The Survival of an American Armored Division in World War II

Presidio Press, 1998. 1st Edition . Hardcover. Near Fine/Very Good. 324 Pages Indexed. Book is clean with slightly off-white pages and a square, sturdy binding. The black boards and dust jacket have some bumping on top and bottom of spine. Remnants of a store sticker on front dust jacket. Price on dust jacket is not clipped. As American tanks raced across France, one fact became immediately clear: One on one, the Sherman tank with her to 75 mm main gun was overmatched by the more heavily armored and heavily gun German tanks that it faced across the battlefield. As a young ordinance lieutenant in the third armored division , it was Belton Cooper's job to travel with the combat units during the day and assist in coordinating the recovery repair and evacuation of the battle damage tanks. At night, Lieutenant Cooper and his jeep driver race the long, dark country roads often going through enemy territory to deliver his combat loss report to ordinance battalion headquarters typically some 30 to 60 miles to the rear this ensure that his units got their share of patched up resurrected Shermans the next day. The German army did not have an armored recovery system at all : they simply abandoned their knocked out vehicles on the battlefield. Death Traps tells the amazing story of a previously unheralded aspect of the American victory. From D-day to the final thrust across Germany, Cooper and the men of his division's maintenance and supply system, manned primarily of soldiers, who had been farm machinery, mechanics and industrial workers in civilian life, put back in action, hundreds of M4 Sherman tanks. This remarkable achievement is brought to life by a man who made more ordinance inspections and witness more battle damage takes then probably anyone else in any war. "Cooper saw more of the war than most junior officers, and he writes about it better than almost anyone. . . . His stories are vivid, enlightening, full of life-and of pain, sorrow, horror, and triumph."-Stephen E. Ambrose, from his Foreword