The Tank that Blew a Hole All the Way Through WW2
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- čas přidán 8. 01. 2024
- The heart-stopping detonation and the toll of twisting metal reverberated across the stretch of Bourguébus Ridge. For a brief, terrifying moment, the crew of the M4A2 Sherman was ensnared in a chilling paralysis. An ominous silhouette of a Panzer IV rose before them, its gun barrel still smoking from the fresh shot it had released.
Panic took hold of the American crew; they were convinced a second round from the Panzer would turn their metal beast into a coffin. With an urgency fueled by raw fear, they hastily deserted the tank, darting towards cover. Yet the second shot never appeared.
The crew returned to their tank and discovered that their potential doom had been thwarted by a spare road wheel perched on the hull, which bore the brunt of the attack, leaving the Sherman virtually untouched. Despite the close call, fate, it seemed, had a much grander plan for this crew and their Sherman tank, aptly nicknamed 'Bomb.'
The men boarded Bomb and pressed on to Verrières Ridge. There, they would vanquish two enemy tanks in a fierce firestorm, asserting their dominance on the battlefield.
For the following months, the humble Bomb would become an unstoppable force, the only tank in World War 2 to fight from D-day to VE-Day non-stop, in an action-packed odyssey that would leave a mark in modern warfare.
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As images and footage of actual events are not always available, Dark Docs sometimes utilizes similar historical images and footage for dramatic effect. I do my best to keep it as visually accurate as possible. All content on Dark Docs is researched, produced, and presented in historical context for educational purposes. We are history enthusiasts and are not always experts in some areas, so please don't hesitate to reach out to us with corrections, additional information, or new ideas. -
I was part of the Sherbrooke Hussars. The Canadian regiment that restored The Bomb and installed it on its current display location in Sherbrooke Québec. It used to be installed in a public park not too far from the regiment but was frequently vandalized. I was the regimental photographer when they moved it to be restored before it was installed in front of the regiment. @Dark Docs Contact me if you want pictures of the operation or actual historical pictures of The Bomb for your thumbnail!
That's crazy and, very kool. Props for offering him free original photos.
That's badass, dude. I have a pic of me as a wee baby sitting in front of The Bomb in its shadow. Whenever my dad sees the pic, he always mentions we had to take a pic on the other side because people had defaced the sunny side.
Great work. Just one correction, it's not called The Bomb, it's just Bomb. Again, great work otherwise.
@@SirDaffyD Agreed - Each Squadron in a Regiment (A, B, or C) would name their tanks using the first letter of the Squadron - therefore - "Bomb" would have been assigned to "B" Sqn of the Regiment.
Great to be a part of the Bomb history.
Good for you my friend, and thank you for your service.
The Sherman was designed to be hoisted aboard small transport ships and sailed across an ocean. The Germans and the Russians had the only limitations of what could fit through a railway tunnel or not overload a bridge. Those realities answer a lot of questions regarding why the USA was producing smaller tanks.
All of what you said is absolutely true but one of the biggest limitations was our tanks drop dead had to be able to fit on the tiny British rail lines
Nonsense. Shermans were the equivalent of every other medium tank (by weight), and almost always one development step ahead of the other mediums on the contemporary battlefield.
It was a good medium tank. Of course it was out classed by German heavy tanks. Up gunned to the 76 high velocity and it could destroy a Tiger. Then the Pershing came to bat and could go toe to toe with German heavy tanks. Another reason was the Sherman was supposed to be infantry support, not a tank duelist. Major tank duels came to fruition in WW2, something that wasn't common in WWI.
The size of the sherman was dictated by the Romans and their invasion of Britain. British roads are sized to a pair of horses hitched to a roman cart. and the rail lines too. This dictates the dimensions of the sherman so it could be moved by rail in England as our tunnels and roads are very narrow
@@stevenwaight9844 - You wanted US tanks to be WIDER???
To what purpose?
One thing often ignored about the Sherman is how modifiable it was. Want more armor? Bigger gun? Different engine? Rocket-pods? Flame-thrower? Amphibious? The Sherman could do it
Don't forget the Brits and their funnies done to the Sherman. The Sherman was quite a versatile Tank.
Mine flayer, drawbridge, troop transport.
An average weapon in the hands of a superior crew makes the difference.
Canada has two tanks that fought from D-Day until VE-Day. Holy Roller in London and Bomb in Quebec
Too many of you didn’t get to go home.🇬🇧🇨🇦. Kinsmen!
Thank you for being respectful of my countrymen's contribution to the war with regards to this remarkable machine. I like your videos very much. FYI "fusiliers" in the British army is pronounced "fewzi-learz" not "few-zil-eyay".
lol I think he might have been using the Quebekker pronounciation but didn't want to correct :)
Bomb did not have an American crew. it was a British tank passed on to the Canadians and used by them in NW Europe. Its survival was really not unusual, only that it served continuously with one regiment. It was one of two tanks preserved in Canada which served through the campaign none stop, the other being "Holly Roller". Many Shermans actually survived, but were taken out of service briefly for many reasons, from minor repairs to battle damage, and when returned they were often issued to another regiment.
I wondered about that. My understanding is that the M4A2 (Detroit Diesel-engined variant) was supplied to Britain, the Soviet Union, and the US Marine Corps. Not impossible, but it would have been rare for any American units in Europe to have an M4A2. The US Army in the European theater used the M4 (welded hull with Continental R975 radial engine), M4A1 (cast hull with Continental R975 radial engine), and the M4A3 (welded hull and Ford GAA V8 engine).
@@stephenweaver7631 Yes, the M4A2 was supplied almost exclusively to the British from May 1942 to July 1943. It was then sent to Russia until the end of the war, with a few going to the USMC. The M4A2 was rejected for the US Army because of the 'twin" engine and diesel fuel. US Army reserved tanks were M4, M4A1 and M4A3, these would have gone to NW Europe. The US Army did use a few M4A4 strictly for training in the US. In 1944 these were factory rebuilt an sent to Britain. I have seen no records that M4A2 was ever used by the US Army.
You should have mentioned that some Shermans, called Fireflies, had a 17 pounder A/Tk gun that could knock out any German tank at long range, but it was less good than the Bomb for infantry support.
He's got other vids that do go into details about firefly's but for a twelve minute video he has to be pretty concise, as there were so many marks and variations on any weapon platform let alone the Sherman.
Why mention modified firefly tanks when the video is about the history and origins of Bomb?
Ask a silly question and you should get a silly answer, but I cant think of one at the moment.@@MuShinnen
@@bernardedwards8461 So then no actual reason to bother spinning off topic about fireflies when the video is about a specific Sherman.
It turns out the reason why the sherman caught on fire so easily was because of the placement of the ammo storage.
The patches of extra Armour welded on the side was "supposed" to help - although in reality, it was basically useless.
No the first Shermans had radial engines that burned aviation gasoline.
@@maxpayne2574 It use gasoline not diesel....
All American Sherman's were gas engine , radial , 30 cylinder crawler ,or 1100 ci Ford V8 . Many had 2 Detroit diesels they were sent to Russia ,and English units , U.S. didn't want to have 2 different fuels to have to supply .
The German Panther, Tiger I/ II, Panzer iii and iv tanks easy caught fire too 83%, German was suffering for lack key alloys in there steels armour plate in 1942, the Tigers, Panther and Panzers will spalling steel deadly fragments inside the tanks killing and wounding the crews even a M4 Sherman tank fire H.E shot three time produce this effect on German tanks, the M4 tanks was cast iron metal which is soft with less BHT, the German Anti Tank Fire will penetrate most of the time and go out with creating a spalling effect.
This should have been the story line for the movie Fury!
Definitely would of made for a way better movie.
More realistic.
My Dad was in the 716th tank batallion under Patton's 3rd Army. Wish I knew more about it, as he never spoke of his time in the war.
Great story. One that I’ve never seen a video on is the story of Patton’s Panthers. African Americans who fought with Patton’s army and manned Sherman’s.
Fantastic story. Worthy of a movie to tell the story of their crew.
It'll never happen unless the crew were played as american.
the fact that was a Diesel and not gasoline changed its fate.
Diesel is far less flammable and the M4A2 engine was far more reliable than the gas ones. It's a shame they didn't put more frontal armour on the Sherman, would have slowed the overall speed, but it would have been a more effective tank, particularly the Firefly version- perhaps superior to a Panther and probably on level pegging with a Tiger 1.
The Sherman used a ford v8 and it was reliable. Diesels actually have some negatives, in cold weather diesel fuel waxes up with paraffin, and diesels are notoriously hard to start in cold weather as well.
The engine in the Sherman was easy to work on, crews could do their own maintenance.
The breakout from Normandy and the race across France to the German border was exactly what the Sherman was designed for. Breaking through enemy defenses and then wreaking havoc with second line troops, supply and maintenance units, and prevent reinforcements.
While looking lackluster on paper(compared to. German Cats) Sherman was far more effective than just about any other tank during the war.
Great story and well told. Thanks for sharing this history with us on CZcams.
The most OP tank in war thunder for the lower tiers 😂😂😂
If I’m not mistaken there were 2 other tanks that made it from D-day to VE and 1 that made it from North Africa through Italy to VE Day
Churchill?
The "Holy Roller" a Sherman in London Ontario also went from D Day to VE Day, it is in Victoria Park, and was recently refurbished. There is also a minty Firefly at the entrance to the Museum.
Bomb...Obviously, a tank built on a Wednesday! This video made me proud to be an American.
Built in the Flint Buick plant.
My Dad was a member of the Calgary Regiment (now the King's Own Calgary Regiment), and crewed a Sherman (he was a Loader) from Sicily till the end of the War.
His statement of the Sherman as that it was a Piece of CRAP, but DID have a couple major advantages - it had a Powered Turret - which meant that you could USUALLY get the first shot - a MAJOR advantage in battle. It was fast and manoeuvrable - Another advantage.... but the MAJOR advantage was "we had Millions of the F*cking things!".
Unfortunately, the "88" was well-known to be able to go in the front of a Sherman, out the back and wouldn't even slow down on the way through.
Also not that Verrierres Ridge was a CANADIAN BATTLE - there were NO AMERICANS INVOLVED. (My neighbour's Uncle is buried there).
The Panther did NOT have an 88mm gun - it carried a High-Velocity 75mm. MUCH superior to the low-Velocity 75 on the Sherman, but inferior to the 17 pounder of the Firefly or the HV 76mm of later Shermans.
I also expect that Ronson used the line from the Army, rather than Vice-Versa.
The GM 6046 engine is basically 2 GM 6-71 engines geared together - the tank DID NOT have 2 Engines!
Fusiliers is pronounced FEW-SIL-EERS. It is NOT a French word.
This came out 4 hours ago and I'm just finding out now! FINALLY
It wasn't called a Ronson. At that time everyone would have known and used Zippo's not Ronson's. And the "lights the first time, every time" phrase wasn't used until the 1950's.
wrong
@@Hriuke AGREED - Zippos were AMERICAN - RONSONs were BRITISH. It was the BRITISH who gave it that name. The Germans called it the "Tommy Cooker" - referring to British Soldiers being called Tommys.
But YES IT WAS called the RONSON. I CONFIRMED that with my Father who was a Loader in Shermans with the Calgary Regiment from 1942 to 1945.
@@normmcrae1140 thr British referred to "Tommy cookers" as ANY armored vehicle in the desert because it is fucking hot. Not just Shermans. But nice try
@@Hriuke it's called fact checking. Try it some time
Zippo was the nickname for the flamethrower Shermans. And the whole “lights up every time” was an over-exaggeration.
You say at 0:22 that "panic took hold of the american crew", and then spend the rest of the film talking about the canadian crew.
It's easy to mistake Canadians for Americans, something that annoys most Canadians, who for historical reasons have no love for America.
Their more than a few reports of the 75 mm gun knocking out tigers on more than a few occasions
The panther’s final drive was also incredibly easy to absolutely destroy just by engaging, an experience driver was needed to make it run without exploding, in the end of the war, experienced crews were quite a rarity.
Jesus, I hate these damn ads.
If you're typing something when one of those come on, it wipes out everything you have done.
Utterly maddening
The 75 could knock it out by hitting it from the rear or by hitting it from the side, parts if the track were vulnerable
The other thing is the mega tanks were rare. They didn't make a lot of them, and a lot were lost on the eastern front. Add to that them being out of action being repaired,they were rare. There is this weird almost cult around the German military and German armor and aircraft that stretched into the realm of myth, where to support that they create the myth that the allies stuff was junk compared to the über warriors, and like most myths is not true.
I have personal involvement , my dad was there, he was part of a tank killer battalion using both towed gun& then the m36. Lot of the ppl arguing that the Sherman was junk& the tiger tank the greatest dont have the context that ppl who were there did.
@@njlauren also the germs lost the war!
You always have interesting stories backed with facts making it more real . Thank you for this Sherman tank story and did Patton really dislike the Sherman?
gotta love when stock footage just get reused for whatever. Talking about how the sherman was easy to produce, then shows footage of the M3 Lee production line...
Also was talking about the big cats and showing footage of stug 3's and 4's and panzer 4's. Looked like they threw whatever footage they had in as filler footage.
@@mageckmanmost kids today don’t know what model kits are let alone every built any, by the time I was 8 every boy on my block knew more about WW2 & each side’s weapons then the average history “teacher” today
@@patrickancona1193 I agree and same here.
You're going to have to teach your robot how to pronounce "Fusiliers"
Nice to see a distinguished war veteran still around for others to see.
That was pretty cool. To go from D-Day to the surrender in a tank is pretty amazing. Good story.
How is it, that in my 62 years of life and a fan of tanks in general, I'm just now finding out about this tank.
I don’t even know how and why but I am fascinated with the Sherman tanks, love them.
The Sherman was to tanks what the Mosquito was to aircraft!
Great story! Am I right in hearing that Bomb was a diesel powered Sherman?
Yeah, I don't think any Sherman's were Diesel powered, but I think the rest of the video is correct. After WW-II some Sherman's were updated with Diesel engines by Country's who bought them from the US.
I’ve been to see this tank in Sherbrooke. Very special piece of history
What a story and to know its a true story wow...This should be a film or a book
Well done Robert
I was happy to learn that the tank was not scrapped.
Very nice.
The real "FURY"!
Nice.
Thats a great story
Wow! Sounds like Fury!
I wish this was the origin of "It's da bomb!"😂
The original Shermans did light up more because they used gasoline. The later ones that used diesel and had wet ammo storage were less likely to light up than any other tank, axis or allied. That is what drives me nuts about the criticisms of the Sherman, everyone wants to pick on the original design. Nothing could match it by the end of the war in all its variants.
Someone already pointed out that the Shermans didn't light up anymore than any of the other medium tanks and that ammo storage was changed.
German tank commanders admitted later that their tanks were lucky to go 100Km without a major malfunction, transmissions were especially troubled. They went by rail to near the battleground, any that survived went back to a railcar. Beautifully finished and precision machine work were the antithesis of the fault-tolerant Detroit iron. Shermans were quick, rugged, reliable, easy to fix. Turret rotational speed was multiples quicker than German stuff. Many reasons why Shermans had a 3X better kill ratio vs. any German tanks, that's a fact.
Similar to Stude and Dodge trucks, Willys Jeeps, etc.
Tigers sloping thick armor ? Hmm
Ive never heard of a diesel powered Sherman before! Most of them were powered by the 30 cylinder Chrysler A57, or the Wright R600 cyclone radial.
Great story and you mixed in an elefant and king tiger which had nothing to do with story but what the heck!
Here, I thought it was a video on the Sherman variant Calliope lol
There was also a heavily armoured variant called the Jumbo.
@@bernardedwards8461 I believe the T14 Heavy was also a variant of the M4
Why is this not a movie?!
Great point 👉
Because US Filmmakers are under the impression that the US was the ONLY country fighting the Germans! They forget that the OTHER HALF of the world was fighting them 2 years before the US joined the War.
I’m watching the outdoor scenes with the Sherman and realized many were filmed at Camp Pendleton in Southern California.
CK out Combat Command: Glory in the wrenches. In WW2 Quarterly, command maintenance personnel kept the drive going. And America's tank ace.
Werey good👍👍👍
It was outclassed by 1945. It has its day, but at no time was it superior to the latest tanks at any time in the war. By 1945, You had the Tiger 1or 2, JS 3, Centurion, produced since January 1945, and of course the Pershing. But as Zhukov said, quantity has its own quality.
From the time they landed on the Normandy beaches, until Germany's surrender, was eleven months.
The M4 Sherman was one of the big reasons for that.
The Ronson ad campaign, "Lights first timer, every time," was postwar.
If you make a tank that's sole purpose is the fight other tanks while your enemy does the same... what is the use of the tanks other than to fight each other. That's why the Sherman is a great tank. It was far more useful in the role of infantry support than most of the German tanks which were usually designed to fight other armored vehicles.
The Ronson nickname is a myth.
I’ll always love dark docs videos.
STOP YOU KNOW BETTER.. THE RONSON AD DIDNT APPEAR UNTUL AFTER THE WAR. as compared to other tanks the sherman did not just flame up. especially since wet storage.. but for drama sake go on.
If the 76mm gun had been installed to begin with, the Sherman story would be much more positive. It speaks to American ingenuity.
My Mom's only Brother was a tanker, killed in Northern France on Oct 3, '44 two months before the Battle of the Bulge began. I went to work at Buick in the '70s and bodies for the cars we built were continually trucked across town from Fisher body to our plant whenever the lines were running. Fisher was the site of the sit-down strike in '37 and many old-timers still referred to it as the tank plant. The work and the workers would be merged into our 'Buick City' complex in '85.
Someone do a movie about this plz😮
Interesting, very interesting…
In today's time Bomb means weed...So it's the weed tank...
We have a tank with similar history here in London Ontario. 11:52
The big cats were no good broken down or out of fuel. The Sherman went through many upgrades from the Tommy cookers with aircraft engines.
The Chieftain did a good appraisal of the Sherman. Most of what we think we know about WW2 is complete BS repeated so often it's taken as gospel. I've yet to see a source for the Sherman ever being called the Tommy cooker, the Ronson (someone said the chronology of that one wasn't right) and some other brand of lighter it was supposed to have been named after. A lot of that stuff is either made up or a quote from a solitary individual. I've also see evidence that the 'big cats' were not as useless as they are generally painted. They all had issues (the shortage of them being a main one) but all tanks have issues as they are a compromise, limited by resources and, logistics (in the case of the Sherman, shipping, apparently most dockside cranes couldn't handle heavier tanks, although I have no original source for that). There is a good video out there showing a Tiger production line compared to an allied tank production line. The Tiger was basically hand-crafted. The allied tanks were cranked out like washing machines and their inherent flaws accepted as the cost of mass production.
As I like your channel, I can no longer stand this. Sherman can't be compared to big cats as they were designed to be heavy anti tank guns with traversible turrets. Sherman was a medium tank with infantry support first and then anti tank capabilities. The gun was average but giving enough firepower for its role in the US military system. The armour was better than T-34. And finally it was not more flammable than other tanks. Its crew rate of survivability was much better than in most contemporary tanks. Check the numbers with T-34. Please do not repeat myths. Look for The Chieftain 's explanations about the Sherman please. Best regards and keep up good work!
Even the Chieftain says that the early war sherman was flammable, but it was largely fixed once they added wet stowage for the ammo. Also going by the Chieftain, the tank was survivable because it was extremely easy to get out of, which was a problem with many tanks of the day. I would also say that the 75mm wasn't average, it was actually an excellent gun against everything except the big cats. It's ability to shred smaller tanks, lightly armored vehicles, unarmored vehicles, and infantry was undeniable.
I would like to know where they have that tank where it’s being displayed at anyhow if anybody knows, please make a comment. Thank you.
Sherbrooke , Quebec
Bomb must’ve been built on a mid week day or somethin lol
I'm so glad the Canadians saved Bob
The Canadian "Fury"
shermans to me is like a common dog against a tiger.....by itself will be always lose ......but with numbers it overwhelm the tigers....tho that changed with the firefly
Wild dogs have been known to gang up on bigger cats
having a hard time picturing an m4 crew panicking because a pz 4 showed up. panzer 5 ok. but a 4?
American ingenuity.
They should make a movie called The bomb.
what in the the hell is a ponzer
Cool, but if it was on Omaha Beach, it wouldn't have made it off the shingle.
Canada produced a lot of armour and munitions during the war.
A lot.
thumbnail click bait, why even bother watching if you are going to do that. downvoted
It’s cool that it was saved, restored and preserved. Eh…
The war would have been a lot shorter still ,had they put the 76 mm or 17lb gun on in the first place though...
Like on the firefly versions...
It was a pea shooter compared to the 88mm...
It wasn't designed for tank warfare. You missed the point
The history of the Sherman Tate has always been. It was too weak against the superior German tanks, but this whole video seems to say the opposite, which I am very pleased with. It just shows a lack of respect for our victorious army in World War II.
First Soviet tank into Berlin ... a Sherman.
The Ronson ad showing a Sherman . . . a Sherman Ronson was a flamethrowing tank used by the Canadian army.
The advertiser is being patriotic not ironic.
The M4 was the best tank of the war.
Any books written about this?
I think there is a book about the Sherbrooke Fusilier Regiment now called the Sherbrooke Hussars.
4500 miles? doubtful, i think there may be an extra zero in there.
I suspect the figure is 4500 km not miles. Bomb has been quoted as travelling 2500 miles with only one engine replacement and one track replacement.
Good video and story…but once again, you miss the definition of “casualty”, when you say ‘they got through with two wounded, but NO casualties’. Wounded are also casualties. Sorry for the semantics rant.
There more than 100 panzer division, and every panzer division composed of 300 to 400 tanks
Must have been made on a Wednesday.
you could have invested more in mines
Numbers? The numbers of big artillery guns, the numbers of planes, the numbers of vehicles, and the numbers of tanks the Germans produced couldn't begin to match that.
Kinda hard when you’re low on supplies and constantly having your factories bombed.
This guy knows nothing about the Sherman...
Something is not right. Just 1 or 2 tanks in Europe made it between D-Day and May '45 ? And that's supposed to be good tank? That's much, much worse than B-17's.
Germans called them Tommy Cookers since once hit they will burn (gasoline engines as opposed to diesels in most tanks) and few crew made it out.
Where is Bomb today? Not a detail to leave out, given the lead-up
Huh? Watch it again.
Sherbrooke, Quebec
7:50 blackface
Zippos...
Tommy cookers
You've changed the name of this video at least three times now. WTF is going on?
There was a serious reason to surrender troops to the English, Canadians, Americans, and Australians. The Germans captured by the Russians were almost all murdered.