The following is a vignette i wrote to a friend that i thought might be of trivia interest to you.
Ever so often i try to explain about my hearing loss to someone and i have finally found a visual that explains it better.
When I was a young man, still teenager in fact, i joined the 49th Armored Division of the Texas National Guard. I was lucky enough to be too young to make the Korean Conflict and too old to make Vietnam and missed everything in between, but was on standby from 55 to 59 during the cold war.
During that time i was with a headquarters company, with light tanks, not what the "Line" (assault) companies had and our duty was the defense of the headquarters and recon, not attack.
In addition to monthly drills, each year we made one trip to Fort Wolters by Mineral Wells for small arms certification and another two week deployment to the tank trails at Fort Hood. Light tanks were manned with a crew of 4 in a bit of a pecking order, loader being bottom in command and Commander at the top. I started as a driver next to bottom, and then promoted to gunner, second in command.
Driving was fun, for the first 30 hours or so. The controls were simple enough, an automatic transmission, accelerator, brakes and a steering column. The steering column came up from the floor and had a crossbar at the top like a T. If you wanted to go right you pulled the end of the T bar to the right and it braked the right track so you turned right. Left was done in the same manner, other end. The brakes were not capable of stopping the tank if it was rolling full speed downhill, but they could slow it. Nobody told me that.
The tank trails were powdered caliche and stirred a cloud of white everywhere we went. At the end of a day we often went straight to the showers where we undressed under the shower as we were literally covered with dust except where our googles protected our eyes.
The big gun, a rifle in reality, shot a 76mm projectile (the line tanks a 90mm). Along side the big gun was a coaxially mounted 30 caliber machine gun for personnel targets which were the gunner's responsibility to annihilate. On top of the tank was a 50 Caliber machine gun the tank commander was responsible for. He stood in the top hatch to shoot it. All in all they were capable of making a lot of noise in addition to the normal racket in the turret. Outside the tank the 76 blasting off would raise the dust about 3 feet.
On big gun practice day we would draw a ½ truckload of these shells from stores and head to the firing range, where there were both obstacle courses and down range courses.
The down range shots were 76mm only and we had to shoot up all the big shells, no taking unused ones back. The first 15 or 29 rounds were kinda fun but we had about 100 and the gun range had no targets left, every possible target had already been obliterated. However every once in a while i could lay a shell flat enough that it would bounce, ricochet if you will, and i could watch it streak for miles. We would drive down the obstacle courses and situations would appear, maybe the profile of an enemy tank. The gunner then had to call for an AP (armor piercing) shell, the loader picked it loaded it an hollered "up" and the gunner already had the target in sights and fired the round. If a small house appeared past a turn with enemy inside a command for HE (high explosive) would be given. Should soldiers be seen afoot, the 30 caliber was used. A mix of targets a mix of guns.
During son Eric and my recent trip to First Monday i bought a replica of that 76mm shell, weighted the same, just under 30#, used to teach recruits how to handle ordinance without using live ammo. They were handled into the tank projectile end first so not to disturb the firing cap.
I'm holding it below beside an old line tank at the old National Guard headquarters in Dallas. The 49th Armored Division was dissolved into the 36th infantry in 2004. It was the last armored division in the United States National Guard.
This, i think, should explain why I have a hearing disability.
I didn't kill anybody, but was willing to do so for "Old Glory". At that time Eisenhower was President, a war hero and a hero of mine.
FWIW, Brother.
The first picture above is the M-41 Walker Bulldog like the one i served in.
My kind regards,
jack
