Destroying Panthers
It was a German Mark V Panther and as soon as the crew saw the lighted road-block, they opened fire with its cannon. Lieutenant Coakley's tank returned fire but the rounds just bounced off the big German tank, which kept plunging ahead and firing at the same time. Its fire, however, was very inaccurate and the road block was not hit. A last desperate shot by Lieutenant Coakley's tank, fired at a range of less than five yards, hit the gun mantle on the German tank, ricocheted down through the top and set it on fire. The German driver, unable to control his tank, rammed it into the road-block.
The German tank was destroyed, one of its crew was killed, two wounded, another taken prisoner, but the last one got away. None of the "C" Company men was hurt. When the scene was surveyed the next morning the only damage found on Lieutenant Coakley's Sherman was a jammed turret which had been hit by the gun barrel of the Panther tank, although the latter had pushed it back several feet and had burned right in front of it all night.
Later in the day five more tanks tried to get by the road-blocks of "B" Company. The Germans were feeling the pinch of the pocket they had been caught in. This time the enemy moved out in the open country with most of the firing at a range of over 1,500 yards. After the fighting had raged for an hour, all but one of the German tanks were beaten back into the pocket. This one, a Mark V had received a direct hit in the suspension system but had kept on going until put out of commission by a 75mm APC from Lieutenant McNab's platoon. As in the case of the Panther destroyed the night before, the shell had hit the gun mantle and ricocheted into the top of the tank. When the German tank was searched after the battle it was found to be from the 2nd SS Panzer Division. Three of the infantry men with the road-block were wounded by machine gun fire, the only loss in "B" Company.
