Death Traps

The Survival of an American Armored Division in WWII

Belton Y. Cooper, Presidio Press, 1998 ISBN 0-89141-670-6

I'd like to thank Greg Novak for providing permission to post this article.

Got my copy of this book the other day, and read through it. I found it to be an interesting book in some areas - and a questionable book in other areas.

To start with, the author was assigned to the 3rd Armored Division at Camp Polk, Louisiana in 1941, and served with it for the entire war. He attended the Armored School at Knox for the Tank Maintenance Course. His active service was that of the liaison officer between the CCB and the divisional maintenance battalion. He spent his time running information back - and bringing repaired vehicles forward. For a day to day look at the system in action, I found this to be a very interesting book. There are even a few possible CD scenarios in this book.

However the fact that the book covers the 3rd Armored Division raises some problems. The 2nd and 3rd Armored Divisions had the heavy (older) TO&E which was quite different from that of the other Armored Divisions, and the internal structure of the 3rd's Armored Division tank battalions is different from those of the usual US Army Tank Battalion. (The 3rd had two Armored Regiments, each with its own recon company, maintenance company, and three tank battalions, each of three companies.) The system used was most likely similar in all armored divisions, but I would hesitate to say that it is the same in all divisions.

On the down side, there are a number of issues and questions raised in this book which cause me to wonder. To start with, the views are those of a veteran who ended the war at 27, so he was in his late 70's when he wrote the book. Some problems may well be related to the age of the author.

The specific problems that I have with the book are:

• Cooper makes a blunt statement that at a weapons demo at Tidworth Downs, England, in January of 1944, George Patton personally prevented the M-26 tank from replacing the M-4 tank. Since Patton was not in England at this time, this is a very strange statement. He further states that the commanders who fought in Sicily and Tunisia wanted the M-26 instead of the M-4 - which contradicts what is recorded in the official army records. Throughout the book - he returns to this point again and again.
• Cooper goes on to claim that the German tanks were all superior (maneuverability, armor, ground pressure, weapons) to the M-4 - which while true in the case of the Panther and Tiger, is somewhat questionable in terms of the Pz IV. Throughout his book one runs into Panthers and Tigers for the most part - and only rarely Mark IV's. The only American tank Cooper likes is the M-26, and his claims of its better maneuverability, ground pressure, etc do not match up with the teething problems reported on the M-26 which resulted in the entire power plant being rebuilt in the post war era.

In addition to the above there are three minor point that I have with Coopers book:

1. First he keeps referring to all non divisional tank battalions as GHQ Tank Battalions, and he states and implies that they are "heavy" battalions. The GHQ term was correct in the proposed 1941 Army, but was phased out soon afterwards. In fact by early 1944 the US Army had gone in almost all cases to the standard "Tank Battalion" of three medium and one light companies. regardless of whether you were an independent tank battalion or assigned to one of the new "light" armored divisions. The battalions of the 3rd Armored Division are the exception, and not the rule. Cooper keeps going back to the 1941 Army for his information - which makes logical sense as that is the Army that he learned about in 1941 at the Armored School at Fort Knox. However it's not the Army that is fighting in 1944 but Cooper doesn't make the connection.
2. Second. In his discussion of the means by which he claims the Grant and Sherman were designed, he makes a statement which calls his knowledge of the process into question. He assumes that the committee had a large number of Yankees on them, as the tanks were given the names of Grant and Sherman which would never should have happened due to the way that the South felt about those two men. He totally fails to realize that the names were given by the British to these vehicles - and picked up afterwards by the Americans. The first US tanks to be given US names were the Chaffee and Pershing - which were chosen to avoid any North South problems.
3. Last, the suggested reading list at the end fails to list any of the "green books" on US Army Ordnance in WWII, though it does list several of the green books covering battles. Likewise Bailey's "Faint Praise" is not mentioned, though any study of the Sherman M4 - Pershing M-26 question needs to start with that book. Neither Blumenson's rewrite of the Patton papers, or Carlo D'Estes new biography is mentioned. The person who is listed as having edited the book did not bother to look for materials with which to cross check information.

So - that's my .02

Greg