Standoff

When we lived in Germany my folks took a trip thru East Germany to Berlin.  I still have my Soviet Visa authorizing my passage to the Russian Zone.  Yes, even a small child might have to produce his 'papers' on demand.  This was before the Soviets built a wall and before this cold war stand-off.  

By the time this photo was snapped in 1961 we had already returned stateside.  

In 2023, accompanied by two additional couples, we traveled thru what had previously been East Germany and took some photos at Checkpoint Charlie.  

What a difference 62 years makes.....

  

 

That KFC location is priceless.  Further evidence of significant progress following reunification.... 

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

 

Cobra King

On this day in history - December 26, 1944 - Army Lt. Charles Boggess was in command of a 38 ton Jumbo Sherman tank named Cobra King. Boggess replaced the tank's previous commander - Charles Trover - who had been killed by a sniper three days earlier as he was standing in the turret. 

The much-depleted elements of 37^th Tank Battalion and the 53^rd Armored Infantry Battalion C Companies were the tip of the spear of General George Patton’s Third Army offensive to punch thru German lines and relieve the besieged defenders of Bastogne, Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge.

Running at full-speed with guns blazing, four miles and 25 minutes later Cobra King linked-up with the 101^st Airborne.

Later, this tank, and a different crew, continued the push into Germany. It was during Patton’s controversial and failed mission to rescue allied POWs from a prison camp Cobra King took a round that penetrated its armor. The resulting fire took it out of action permanently.

Following the war the tank was recovered from the battlefield and served as the ‘Gate Guard’ at McKee Barracks in Crailsheim, Germany where we lived in the 1950s.

Following an exterior restoration on August 3, 2017, Cobra King was installed at the new National Museum of the United States Army at Fort Belvoir outside of Washington, DC.

 

McKee Barracks

McKee Barracks, located midway between Nürnberg (Nuremberg) and Stuttgart on Route 14, was named after Major John L. McKee, Jr. of the 901st Field Artillery Battalion. Major McKee was killed in 1945, while engaged in a spotter flight over Trebnitz, Germany.

McKee Barracks is located one mile east of Crailsheim, a junction point for highway and railway traffic crisscrossing central Germany.

During World War II, the area now known as McKee Barracks was an aviation and pilot training school for the German Luftwaffe. A portion of this field was destroyed in the Allied bombing in March, 1945, and during the Four Day Battle in April, 1945 when elements of the 10th Armored Division occupied Crailsheim. Two of the hangars are still standing at the rear of the post air strip.

American troops, after fierce fighting, occupied Crailsheim on 6 April, 1945, withdrew on 10 April and reoccupied the area on 20 April, 1945.

McKee Barracks, plus five four-story dependent buildings, were built in 1951. On December 15, 1952, the Recreation Center was first opened and in 1953, the remaining dependent quarters were completed. The gym was completed in 1954, followed by construction of the Tank Park Hardstand in 1957 and the washracks in 1958.

There are a total of 107 permanent and 19 temporary buildings. This includes space for approximately 2,000 troops and 309 families. Normal support facilities are available.

Source: Crailsheim ACS Welcome Packet, early 1980s

My parents moved to McKee shortly after the construction of the original dependent buildings.  They were civilian employees of the Army - my mom a teacher and my dad the principal of the base school.  I was born there.  As a consequence I've always harbored a fascination for my birthplace and even visited the camp in the early 1970s.

 A number of years ago I blogged about having to locate the original copy of the layout of of the cantonment of McKee Barracks back in the early 1950s.

I found it last weekend.

SCHWAEB. HALL SUB AREA

CANTONMENT CRAILSHEIM

GENERAL LAYOUT

Plan B611, Scale 1:5000.  Here's a scanned copy of it dated 10-10-54.

CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE

Upper left corner is civilian housing area, top (in color) is base housing and headquarters buildings, middle is the motor pool and at the bottom is the airfield.

The camp was closed in January 1994 and turned-over to German civilian authorities and today virtually all traces of it have vanished.

Here's a current Google map view...

Anyway, if you're like me and enjoy taking a walk down memory lane you can learn more about USAREUR Units and Installations in the region of Ansbach Germany by visiting this directory here.  Click on Ansbach and you'll be redirected to the installation maps from the 1970s and 1980s - including McKee Barracks are at the top of the page.  

Click on McKee on the header you will be redirected to some cool photos of the camp over the years.

  

McKee Barracks

I never cease to be amazed at the resources that can be found on the web that are freely available.

The other day I dipped my toe into childhood and my early years on a US Army post in Germany.

Camp McKee was closed in 1994.  Nonetheless, someone is keeping track of former US Army airfields in Germany.  This Google map below shows the position of the single landing strip in blue.  Located immediately above (bordered by Haller Straße  to the north) is what's left of the former army post.


View Crailsheim AAF/AHP in a larger map

If you click on the link above to view the larger map you can zoom-in to locate the main post entrance and the post's streets lined with large and mature trees.  Most of the buildings have vanished.  Yikes!

I have an original copy of the US Army draft of the layout of buildings and airfield for the original cantonment dating back to the early years of McKee Barracks.

I should locate it and compare it with Google''s imagery.   

Cobra King

The day following Christmas 1944, Cobra King - its nickname 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 encircled 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.
(go ahead and double click  on the images to enlarge)

Following the war Cobra King remained in Germany.  

The 37th Tank Battalion was subsequently re-activated in 1951 and assigned to the 4th in 1953 at Fort Hood, Texas. The group would later return to Europe.

Here is the Cobra King 'guarding' the headquarters building at McKee Barracks in Crailsheim, Germany in 1958.

I used to live there.  Technically I was born in Stuttgart - but McKee Barracks was home.  

McKee barracks  was subsequently closed in 1994 and 1st Armored relocated to Vilseck.

Of course, they took their tank with them. 

The division later relocated to Bad Kreuznach, Germany, but this time Cobra King stayed behind.

Cobra King maintained its vigil in relative obscurity for several years 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.  Cobra King is now expected to go on display at the National Museum of the U.S. Army, scheduled to open in 2013 near Washington, D.C.

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


Learn more about the story of this silent sentry here.

Photos - US Army