Distraught over the knowledge that he pulled the trigger that ended her life, Smoyer experienced bouts of depression and latent PTSD. Although the confrontation was over, battle still raged throughout the city.ĭecades after the war, Smoyer found a video copy of the tank duel, and saw the final moments of Kathi Essen. He would continue fighting the Germans as the Allies won Cologne, and further pushed into Paderborn, where the Third Reich collapsed and the war came to an end. Smoyer never realized the entirety of what happened. She was a loyal employee, staying far past when she should have escaped the city. A briefcase in the car contained her papers, including letters to and from family and a degree in home economics. Medics could only offer her a final act of comfort as she passed. They worked to stabilize her, but the wounds were mortal. Medics examined the car, finding the driver already dead from multiple gunshot wounds, but Kathi was critically wounded, but still alive. After taking damage, the German tank ducked back around the corner, when Smoyer decided to fire at the adjacent building, bringing down large chunks of brick and material onto the German tank, as the crew decided to abandon the fight. Thinking the car had German officers or Nazi officials, Smoyer sprayed fire from his tank machine guns.Īmid the firing tanks, the car drifted to a stop as the fighting continued. Rounding the corner in their desperate flight to safety, they sped straight into the street between the two firing tanks. Katherina Esser, known as Kathi to her family and friends, and her boss at the local grocery store she worked at, were driving in desperate attempts to get to safety. The ensuing duel was nothing short of destructive chaos.Īlthough most of the Cologne citizens fled as the armies converged on the city, some were still trying to get out as the fighting commenced. Smoyer’s Pershing tank came face to face with Schaefer’s as he rounded a street corner. Their stories intersect at the height of fighting in Cologne, Germany in March, 1945. Spearhead documents Allied tank gunner Clarence Smoyers as the 3 rd Armored Division pushed into Germany in the final phase of World War 2, and Gustav Schaefer, his German counterpart. While reading Spearhead, by Adam Makos, the effect war has on the people really comes to light. The civilians who are displaced, wounded, or killed. It’s also important to reflect on those caught in the crossfire. A son or daughter who wanted to make their family proud, or just wanted to get home. A father or mother who wants to get home to their family. I attempt to reflect and understand that each of these numbers represent a person. I frequently read magazines and books related to military history, and often throughout the content, I see the numbers of those who paid the ultimate sacrifice during an engagement, and it’s important to understand the size and nature of what occurred. What seems to be lost in the shuffle are the stories, the people behind these numbers. At times it seems that life is just a big number crunching exercise by statisticians. War seems to be defined as much as numbers of causalities as much as defining the winning and losing sides. Stats document people affected by the coronavirus or the flu. We divide our populations into generations, boomers, x, millennial, etc… A certain number of people will contract a disease or sickness. Each year, numbers of children are born, numbers of people die. Life always seems to come down to numbers and stats.
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