Cobra King

77 years-ago, the day following Christmas, 1944,  a Jumbo Sherman tank named Cobra King made history.  Its name - symbolic of the tank corps tradition of naming vehicles with the first letter of their companies’ designations - and its five-man crew from the 37th’s Company C led a column of infantry and armor that relieved the besieged and surrounded soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division at Bastogne, Belgium.   

The Cobra King crew -- 1st Lt. Charles Boggess, Cpl. Milton Dickerman and Pvts. James G. Murphy, Hubert S. Smith and Harold Hafner -- pose for a celebratory photo in the vicinity of Bastogne, Belgium shortly after the tankers led the armor and infantry column that liberated the city in December 1944. 

A word about this vehicle.  

Cobra King is an M4A3E2 Assault Tank nicknamed the Jumbo Sherman for a welded hull and one piece cast nose.  An extra one inch of armor in the front made it more resistant to German 88 millimeter shells.  Production began with Ford in June 1942 with Grand Blanc assuming production in February of 1944.  It sported a vertical sided turret and even with a Ford GAA V-8 engine, because of the weight of the additional armor, top speed of 22 mph was 3-4 mph slower than its predecessors. 

Following the war Cobra King remained in Germany.  Combat damage relegated it to a US Army transportation yard in Hammelburg; its place in military history temporarily lost.  Fortunately, its subsequent reuse as a military base monument saved it from the scrapyard.

Historical footnote:  The 37th Tank Battalion was subsequently re-activated in 1951 and assigned to the 4th Armored Division in 1953 at Fort Hood, Texas. Cobra King's unit would later return to Europe.  

There is a personal tangent to this story.  Some of you know that I was born overseas when my family lived on a US Army base in southern Germany.  In the 1950s McKee Barracks (among other things) was a hardstand for armor during the Cold War.  Coincidentally, the gate monument where we lived was a WWII era Jumbo Sherman.

McKee - 1958

Nobody knew it at the time but the Sherman guarding the headquarters building at McKee in Crailsheim, Germany was of historic significance. 

Later, when the 1st Armored relocated to Vilseck they took their tank with them.  

The division later relocated to Bad Kreuznach, but this time the Sherman stayed behind.  McKee was permanently closed in 1994 and the property returned to the people of Crailsheim.  The base school where dad was the first Principal continues in use as a school by the community.

 

The Sherman maintained its vigil in relative obscurity until Sgt. Brian Stigall of the 5th Battalion, 7th Air Defense Artillery, recognized it after attending a Battle of the Bulge commemoration in 2004.

Research by Army historians in Germany and the U.S. confirmed its identity.  It was indeed Cobra King.  There was also also considerable evidence of battle damage.  An explosion had resulted in a fire, destroying the tank’s interior, and causing the famous “First in Bastogne” tank to become permanently disabled.  

 

After identification Cobra King was returned to the United States in 2009 for restoration at Fort Knox.  The extent of the interior combat damage made any sort of interior restoration impossible yet further research led to what may have been the cause.  

As a consequence of physical and photographic evidence, primary sources and the historical record the restoration crew came to believe that Cobra King may have participated in the disastrous Hammelburg Raid of late March 1945.  

This raid was a secret mission to penetrate behind German lines, liberate the Oflag XIII-B POW camp near Hammelburg, and return safely with US officers held there.  One of the POWs at the camp was the son-in-law of General George Patton who ordered the raid.  This was not without any small amount of controversy.
 
Conducted by Task Force Baum, under the capable and seasoned leadership of Captain Abraham Baum, the Hammelburg Raid failed when it was cutoff by German forces almost 50 miles behind enemy lines. In the end, 32 Americans were killed and some 247 others were wounded, captured or missing with only 35 soldiers eventually finding their way to allied lines.  It was the restoration team's belief that a casualty of the Hammelburg Raid was Cobra King.  

Who knew?

With its historical pedigree intact and an exterior restoration completed Cobra King is now on display at the National Museum of the U.S. Army, located at Fort Belvoir, VA. 

It would be nice to visit Cobra King some day.  Something of a reunion.  What an amazing journey and a small personal connection with big history.

Learn more about the story here. 

Photos - US ARMY