This presentation of In Their Own Words is dedicated to the brave men and women of the United States Armed Forces.

In June of 1944, after D-Day, the Allies dispatched armored forces to Europe to join the fight.

The American Army's second and third armored divisions were designated heavy armored divisions and were equipped with the M4 Sherman tank.

The GIs hoped the Sherman was the finest tank on earth, but in fact, the American tank

was woefully inadequate when faced with a powerful gun and heavy armor of the German

Panther and Tiger tanks.

All too often, the Sherman was reduced to a steel coffin.

Belton Cooper was a 25-year-old ordnance officer in the 3rd Armored Division,

tasked with recovering and replacing battle-damaged tanks.

He witnessed firsthand the deficiencies of the Sherman, and even wrote about it in his aptly named book, Death Traps.

Cooper first saw the Sherman while training at Indian Town Gap,

Pennsylvania in 1943.

When we got to Sherman's in Indian Town Gap, we thought it was a good tank because

it had a gun deterred.

None of them had a gun that turret before.

I was a big gun.

We trained with them in England.

We thought they were good tanks.

But we never really knew anything about German tanks.

We had no information.

I never saw any field managers that told us about the German tanks.

I never heard of a panther tank. I'd read about the Tiger tanks because there'd been a newspaper that had been used in North African, the Cassarine Pest,

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