Tanks On The Beaches

Robert Neiman, perhaps the most experienced combat commander of the U.S. Marine Corps’ tank arm, was one of the rare USMC officers to serve in both Iwo Jima and Okinawa battles. In Tanks on the Beaches, Neiman and his coauthor, Kenneth Estes, relay vivid accounts of fighting in the Pacific War, as well as Marine Corps service during the entire World War II period, devoid of idolatry and mythmaking. The result is a war story told from the unique perspective of men fighting from armored machines in desperate battles against a determined enemy. After the capture of Guadalcanal, Neiman endured Japanese bombardments there to gather information for his assignment as operations officer of a new tank school being formed in California. He eventually led his own tank company through four island battles culminating in the cauldron of Iwo Jima. Later, he finished the war as executive officer and commanding officer of the 1st Tank Battalion on occupation and security duty in North China in 1945–46. Neiman and Estes take the reader from prewar training at Quantico and in North Carolina through the delights of a New Zealand bereft of men, the horrors of Saipan and Iwo, the peculiar situation in China after the war, and then the trip back to the States for Neiman’s successful postwar career as a lumber retailer. Through it all, Estes translates Neiman’s eye for the interesting and the human into a multifaceted tale of a young Marine going to war. This is an adventure story with many novel turns that will attract the interest of military experts, military history aficionados, Marine Corps members in general, and veterans of armored fighting vehicle units. Neiman is not a USMC icon, just one of the unheralded thousands of officers who did the real fighting. This is their story, as much as it is his.

Allied success in invading Fortress Europe (the area of Continental Europe occupied by Nazi Germany) depended on getting armor onto the beaches as fast as possible. This book explains how the Allies developed the specialist tanks it needed, their qualities, deployment and numbers, and how they performed on the two crucial days when France was invaded, firstly in Normandy and then in Provence. The focus of this volume will be on the specialized tanks developed for the Operation Neptune amphibious landings including the Duplex Drive amphibious Sherman tanks used on both the US and British/Canadian beaches. It also covers the specialized engineer tanks called ”Armoured Funnies” of the British 79th Armoured Division and addresses the popular myth that US Army refusal to employ the Armoured Funnies was a principal cause for the high casualties at Omaha Beach. There is also coverage of Operation Overlord's “Forgotten D-Day”, the amphibious landings of Operation Dragoon. This book addresses why there were so few Panzers opposing the landings from the German perspective as well as detailing the extent of German tank/assault gun activity on D-Day.

German defenses along the Normandy beaches were part of the larger Atlantic Wall fortifications designed to defend Fortress Europe. When Field Marshal Erwin Rommel took command of the invasion front in late 1943, he began a program to enhance fortifications along the Normandy coast as he believed that any Allied assault had to be stopped on the invasion beaches themselves. His most important contribution to the defenses was an extensive program of improvised beach obstructions to complicate any landing attempt. This book analyses these fortifications and describes how the Allied forces overcame them on the morning of June 6, 1944.

The Sherman DD (Duplex Drive) tank was a brilliant innovation; the design and development of a tank that could float and even 'swim' in water was controversial. Each tank was enveloped in a waterproofed canvas screen, launched at sea from landing craft and then 'swam' to shore, where the screens were deflated, allowing the tanks to operate as fighting vehicles. This book discusses the Sherman DD's many variants, including the prototype Valentine DD tank and examines the successes and tragic failures on the beaches of Normandy and further into North-West Europe, including the challenge of crossing the River Rhine.

Since 2015, British photographer Mark Neville (born 1966) has been documenting life in Ukraine, with subjects ranging from holidaymakers on the beaches of Odessa and the Roma communities on the Hungarian border to those internally displaced by the war in Eastern Ukraine. Employing his activist strategy of a targeted book dissemination, Neville is committed to making a direct impact upon the war in Ukraine. He will distribute 2,000 copies of this volume free to policy makers, opinion makers, members of parliament both in Ukraine and Russia, members of the international community and those involved directly in the Minsk Agreements. He means to reignite awareness about the war, galvanize the peace talks and attempt to halt the daily bombing and casualties in Eastern Ukraine which have been occurring for four years now. Neville's images are accompanied by writings from both Russian and Ukrainian novelists, as well as texts from policy makers and the international community, to suggest how to end the conflict.

The U.S. 70th Tank Battalion boasts one of the most impressive combat records of any American armored unit in World War II. It landed in North Africa as part of Operation Torch and participated in the invasion of Sicily, D-Day, the Normandy campaign, the Battle of the Bulge, and the final drive into Germany. It remains in service today as the 70th Armor Regiment, the U.S. Army's most decorated armor unit.

Description: Beach on fire, men and tanks coming ashore from LST (Landing ship, tank), PTO.

27 April 1944. Exercise Tiger. German E-boats intercept rehearsals for the D-Day landings... On a dark night in 1944, a beautiful stretch of the Devon coast became the scene of desperate horror. Tales began to leak out of night-time explosions and seaborne activity. This was practice for Exercise Tiger, the main rehearsal for the Utah Beach landings. This fiasco, in which nearly 1,000 soldiers died, was buried by officials until it was almost forgotten. That is, until Ken Small discovered the story, and decided to dedicate the rest of his life to honouring the brave young men who perished in the disastrous exercise. Pulling a Sherman tank from the seabed, Ken created a memorial to those who died and started to share their story, and his, with the world. This updated edition of a bestselling classic is a gripping tale of wartime disaster and rescue in the words of the soldiers who were there, and of one man's curiosity that turned into a fight to ensure that they would never be forgotten.

'One of the best half-dozen personal accounts of the Normandy campaign' - Richard Holmes Stuart Hills embarked his Sherman DD tank on to an LCT at 6.45 a.m., Sunday 4 June 1944. He was 20 years old, unblooded, fresh from a public-school background and Officer Cadet training. He was going to war. Two days later, his tank sunk, he and his crew landed from a rubber dinghy with just the clothes they stood in. After that, the struggles through the Normandy bocage in a replacement tank (of the non-swimming variety), engaging the enemy in a constant round of close encounters, led to a swift mastering of the art of tank warfare and remarkable survival in the midst of carnage and destruction. His story of that journey through hell to victory makes for compulsive reading.

A companion to the Utah Beach publication, provides a historical narrative dealing with American military operations in France during the month of June 1944 including D-Day in Normandy. Prepared by the 2d Information and Historical Service, attached to the First Army, and by the Historical Section, European Theater of Operations. Other products in the American Forces in Action Series are listed below: Salerno: American Operations From the Beaches to the Volturno, 9 September - 6 October 1943 is available here:https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-029-00196-9 Papuan Campaign: The Buna-Sananada Operation (16 November 1942-23 January 1943) is available here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-029-00205-1 The Capture of Makin, November 20-24, 1942-Print Hardcover/Clothbound format can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-029-00206-0 Guam: Operations of the 77th Division, July 21-Aug. 10, 1944 is available here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-029-00204-3 Fifth Army at the Winter Line (15 November 1943 - 15 January 1944) --Print Paperback format can be found here:https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-029-00198-5 St. Lo -Print Paperback format is available here:https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-029-00127-6 From the Volturno to the Winter Line, 6 Oct.-15 Nov. 1943 -is available here:https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-029-00197-7 To Bizerte With the II Corps (23 April - 13 May 1943) -Print Hardcover/Clothbound format can be found here:https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-029-00207-8 Utah Beach to Cherbourg (6 June-27 June 1944) can be found here:https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-029-00129-2 Merrill\'s Marauders (February - May 1944) -Print Paperback format can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-029-00203-5 World War II resources collection can be found here:https://bookstore.gpo.gov/catalog/us-military-history/battles-wars/world-war-ii