The engine dies.
Staff Sergeant Lafayette P sits frozen in the commander’s cupula of his M4 Sherman tank, hand still on the radio switch.
Through the pre-dawn fog near Minster Bush, Germany, shapes are materializing, dark, angular, massive.
Panthers pool counts them in the mist.
3:00, 9:00, 12:00.
The 45tonon German killing machines are emerging from tree lines in a closing semicircle.
He counts eight, no 10, 12 panthers, their long 75 mm barrels sweeping the killing ground like the antenna of hunting insects.
It is September 19th, 1944, and Pool has just made the worst tactical decision of his war.
His Sherman, the third tank he has named in the mood, sits alone in a shallow depression southeast of Aan.
The rest of his platoon is 800 yardds behind the ridgeel line, waiting for his signal to advance.
But P, always aggressive, always pushing forward, had crept ahead to scout German positions in the pre-dawn darkness.
Now the sun is rising, burning away the fog, and he has driven straight into the center of an entire German Panzer company.
The mathematics of this engagement are brutally simple.
A Panther’s 75 mm KWK42 gun can penetrate his Sherman’s frontal armor from 2,000 yards.
His 76m gun can only penetrate a Panther’s frontal armor from inside 500 yardd, and only if he hits specific weak points.
The Panther weighs 45 tons with 100 mm of sloped frontal armor.
His Sherman weighs 33 tons with 60 in of armor that might as well be cardboard.
Standard US Army doctrine for this situation is clear.
Call for artillery.
Call for air support.
Withdraw immediately.
But P cannot withdraw forward.
That puts him into the German guns.
He cannot turn around.
His thin rear armor will be exposed for 30 critical seconds while the tank rotates.
In that time, 12 German gunners will pump armor-piercing rounds into his crew compartment.
His driver, Corporal Wilbert Baby Richards, his gunner, Corporal Willis Groundhog, Aller, his loader, Tech 5 Dell Jailbird Bogs, his bow gunner, Private Bert Schoolboy Close.
All will burn.
What P doesn’t know is that the decision he makes in the next 15 seconds will revolutionize American armored doctrine.
That the stupid maneuver he is about to execute will be taught at Fort Knox for the next 80 years.
That 12 German tank commanders are about to learn why American Sherman crews have stopped fighting fair.
Pool keys the intercom.
His voice is Texas calm.
Baby on my mark full reverse.
Groundhog, stay on target.
We’re going to do this backward.
By September 1944, American tankers in Europe are dying at an unsustainable rate.
The problem is technological, mathematical, and institutional.
And it is killing five American tank crews for every German Panther they destroy.
The M4 Sherman medium tank, pride of American industrial production, is being systematically slaughtered by German Panther and Tiger tanks across France.
From the hedgeross of Normandy to the approaches to the Sigf freed line, the pattern repeats.
German tanks fire first from long range.
American tankers die before seeing where the shot originated.
Afteraction reports from June through August 1944 document the carnage.
The Third Armored Division’s Combat Command.
A reports loss ratios of 41, sometimes 501, in tank versus tank engagements.
A Sherman costs $45,000 and takes 2 months to build.
A trained tank crew takes 6 months to produce.
The mathematics are grim.
America can replace the Shermans, but not the men fast enough.
The problem is physics.
A Panther’s high velocity gun generates 920,000 jewels of kinetic energy at the muzzle.
The Sherman’s 76 mm generates 685,000 jewels.
When both fire at 1,000 yd, the Panther’s armor-piercing round retains penetration capability.
The Sherman’s round bounces.
Armor disparity compounds the problem.
The Panther’s frontal glasses, 100 mm of steel sloped at 55°, creates an effective thickness of 185 mm.
The Sherman’s frontal armor, 64 mm at 47° creates 90 of effective protection.
A Panther can engage Shermans from outside American gun range, firing with impunity.
American tank crews call it meeting engagements, a sanitized term for ambush.
German Panthers position in hull down firing positions, exposing only their turrets behind terrain.
When American armor advances down roads or across fields, Panthers fire from concealment.
The first indication of enemy presence is usually the metallic shriek of German steel penetrating American armor.
Crew survival rates tell the story.
Between 60 80% of penetrated Shermans catch fire.
The Sherman’s ammunition storage, wet stowage improvements notwithstanding, ignites easily.
Tankers call them Ronssons after the cigarette lighter slogan, lights every time.
Exit hatches are small.
Wounded crew members rarely escape.
The US Army Ordinance Department insists the Sherman is adequate.
General Jacob Devers writes in July 1944, “The M4 tank has been hailed as one of the most successful weapons produced by the United States.
Technical reports emphasize the Sherman’s reliability, ease of maintenance, and numerical superiority.
For every Panther Germany produces, America produces seven Shermans.
But tank crews fighting Panthers don’t care about production ratios.
They care about the 17 seconds between seeing a panther and burning alive.
Field commanders report the problem up the chain.
The panther must be dealt with, writes Major General Morris Rose, commanding the third armored division in August 1944.
He requests the new T-26 Persing heavy tank or at least more advant armed Shermans.
His requisitions are denied.
Persing production will not begin until 1945.
The 70mm Sherman is in short supply.
Most units are still equipped with 75 mm guns.
Tank destroyer doctrine is supposed to solve the problem.
The tank destroyer branch equipped with high velocity guns on lightly armored chassis is tasked with hunting enemy armor.
Shermans are meant for infantry support and exploitation, not tank versus tank combat.
But in practice, tank destroyers are often unavailable, detached, or deployed elsewhere.
When panthers appear, Sherman crews must fight them alone.
By September 1944, American tankers and units like the Third Armored Division have learned survival depends on innovation, not doctrine.
They experiment with tactics, terrain usage, and maneuver.
Some discoveries are incremental.
Others, like the one Staff Sergeant Lafayette Pool is about to demonstrate, change everything.
The failed solutions litter French fields.
Frontal assaults suicidal.
Flanking maneuvers, timeconsuming and still dangerous.
Calling for artillery, effective but not always available.
Attempting to disable panthers with repeated hits.
uses too much ammunition and reveals position.
None solve the immediate problem.
How does a Sherman survive and kill when encountering superior German armor? The answer, P realizes, lies in doing the one thing no tank commander has ever attempted in sustained combat, fighting backward.
Lafayette Greenpool should not be commanding tanks.
He has no tactical training beyond basic armor school, no commission, no West Point pedigree.
He is a staff sergeant, a non-commissioned officer leading a platoon usually commanded by a lieutenant.
His formal education ended after one year of engineering college in Texas when the draft notice arrived in June 1941.
What pool has is 81 days of continuous combat experience and an instinct for tank fighting that borders on prednatural.
Born July 23rd, 1919 in ODM, Texas, a town so small it has one traffic light, P grew up working his father’s farm and boxing golden gloves to pay for college.
He tried to join the Navy with his twin brother John in 1937, but was rejected due to an old eye injury from a childhood accident with scissors.
When the army drafted him in 1941, they took him despite the damaged iris.
The army made P, a mechanic in the newly formed third armored division.
He taught himself tank gunnery by reading manuals at night.
He memorized armor penetration tables.
He studied German tank specifications in captured intelligence reports.
When the division received its first M4 Shermans in 1942, P volunteered for every gunnery range session, firing until his crew could reload and engage targets faster than any other platoon.
Pool’s obsession with training is legendary.
His crew, Corporal Wilbert Richards, driver.
Corporal Willis Aller, gunner.
Tech 5 Delbogs, loader, and Private Bert Close, bow gunner, drills constantly.
Pool demands perfection.
5-second reload times.
First round hits at 120 yards.
Emergency bailout procedures practiced until muscle memory takes over.
He nicknames his crew.
Richards is baby for his small stature and aggressive driving.
Aller is groundhog for the goggle marks around his eyes.
Bogs is jailbird after choosing army service over prison time.
Close is school boy because he is 17 with peach fuzz on his face.
Twice pool is offered a commission as a left tenant.
Twice he refuses.
I just want to have one of the best tank crews in the division.
He tells his battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Walter Richardson.
Pool understands something his superiors don’t.
Tank combat is a crew skill, not a command position.
Better to stay with trained men than accept promotion and start over with strangers.
Between June 27th and September 19th, 1944, P and his crew destroy 258 German armored vehicles.
The tally includes 12 tanks, mostly Panthers, plus self-propelled guns, halftracks, and armored cars.
They kill over 1,000 German soldiers and capture 250 prisoners.
Pool’s tank leads his task force in 21 major attacks.
These numbers make him the deadliest American tank commander of World War II, and he achieved them in less than 3 months.
But numbers don’t capture Pool’s real innovation.
On September 7th, 1944, during fighting near Dies, Belgium, P encounters a Panther at 1,500 yd.
Extreme range for his 76 mm gun.
Standard doctrine says close distance or wait for a better shot.
Instead, Pool notices terrain, a slight rise that puts his Sherman hull down if he backs up 20 yards.
He orders Richards to reverse as the Sherman backs up the rise.
Pool keeps the gun on target using the tank’s vertical stabilizer.
A crude gyroscope that maintains gun aim while moving.
The Sherman crests the rise in reverse exposes only its turret and fires.
The Panther explodes.
Pool realizes the Sherman can fight backward.
And fighting backward changes everything.
Pool cannot officially test his theory.
There are no training ranges in a combat zone, no test protocols, no ordinance officers to evaluate new tactics.
The third armored division is advancing toward Germany.
Every night brings hasty defensive positions, maintenance, ammunition resupply, and 4 hours of sleep.
So P tests his theory in combat.
Small engagements, controlled risks.
On September 10th near Namore, Belgium, Pool’s platoon encounters three German self-propelled guns positioned in a treeine.
Standard tactic, advance to flanking position under covering fire.
Instead, P orders all five platoon tanks to advance in line to a ridge line 600 yardd from the enemy, then execute a synchronized reverse down the slope.
The platoon commanders think he has lost his mind.
That’s ass backward, radios Lieutenant Hayes from second platoon literally.
Trust me, P replies.
The five Shermans advance at 600 yd inside the German gun range.
The SPGs open fire.
Rounds whistle overhead as the Shermans crest the ridge.
Pool counts.
3 2 1 back.
Five Sherman drivers shift into reverse simultaneously.
The tanks back down the slope in formation, maintaining turret aim forward using their stabilizers.
They settle into hull down positions where only turrets remain visible over the RGELine crest.
The German gunners see five targets disappear, leaving only small turret profiles exposed.
Pool’s tanks fire.
The SPGs fire, but the Germans are shooting at turrets.
3 foot high targets at 600 yd while the Americans shoot at full vehicle silhouettes.
Within 90 seconds, all three German vehicles are burning.
Zero American casualties.
Lieutenant Hayes radios.
War Daddy.
That’s the craziest thing I’ve seen work.
Pool begins teaching the technique to other platoon commanders.
The key is terrain selection.
any reverse slope, any depression, any position that provides defilade protection.
American tank doctrine has always emphasized hull down fighting, but traditionally that meant driving forward into position and stopping.
Pool’s innovation is continuous movement backward while maintaining fire, what later doctrine will call shoot and scoot.
The Sherman’s technical features make this possible.
The M4 has 12° of gun depression.
The barrel can aim 12° below horizontal.
The Panther has only 8°.
This means a Sherman in hull down position can depress its gun to fire down forward slopes while exposing minimal target area.
A Panther attempting the same position must expose more of its hull to achieve firing angle.
The Sherman’s vertical stabilizer, derided by some crews as useless for accurate shooting on the move, suddenly becomes valuable.
The stabilizer is a gyroscopic mechanism that keeps the gun roughly on target while the tank moves.
It is not accurate enough for precision fire while rolling, but it is perfect for maintaining aim during short reverse movements.
A Sherman backing 20 yards can keep its gun pointed at a target.
A panther must stop, traverse, and reim after any movement.
Pools crews practice during lulls in combat.
They find ideal reverse positions, hill crests with good rear slopes, BMS with clear fields of fire, ridgeel lines with defilated protection behind.
They measure sight lines.
They rehearse synchronized reversing where multiple tanks back up in information without collision.
By September 18th, Pool’s entire platoon has mastered reverse position fighting.
They just haven’t tested it against a full strength German Panzer Company.
That test comes the next morning at Müster Bush.
Lieutenant Colonel Walter Richardson receives Pool’s radio transmission at A523 hours, September 19th, 1944.
Contact 12 Panthers engaging.
Richardson is in his command tank 800 yd behind Pool’s position.
He grabs his radio handset.
Pool, pull back immediately.
That’s an order.
Pool’s reply crackles through static.
Negative, sir.
Already committed.
Executing reverse engage.
Request fire support and keep second platoon ready to advance on my signal.
Richardson stares at his radio operator.
Did he just say he’s engaging 12 Panthers? Yes, sir.
Backward.
That’s what it sounded like, sir.
At the battalion command post 3 mi back, Major Don Boyer monitors the radio net.
He calls Richardson.
Did P just report contact with 12 enemy tanks.
Affirmative.
He’s he’s engaging them in reverse.
Silence on the radio.
Then order him to withdraw.
I tried, sir.
He says he’s committed.
Then get artillery on those Panthers before the radio frequency explodes with overlapping transmissions.
Contact front panthers at treeine.
Taking fire.
Taking fire.
Gunner traverse right.
Loader AP round.
Back up baby.
Richardson listens to the chaos.
Standard engagement protocol demands he order Pool to break contact and call for artillery support.
But something in Pool’s voice, the Texas calm draw even under fire, makes him hesitate.
Pool comes back on command frequency.
Colonel, respectfully suggest second platoon, advance to Ridgeline and prepare hull down positions.
When these Panthers move to flank me, your boys will have side shots.
Richardson makes the decision.
Second platoon, advance to planned positions.
weapons free on any enemy armor.
In the battalion command post, Major Buer hears this exchange and reaches for his handset to countermand the order, then stops.
Ber has been in armored command for 2 years.
He has read afteraction reports from North Africa, Sicily, Italy.
He knows the statistics.
Sherman crews who survived the war are the ones who innovate, who adapt, who find tactical solutions to technological problems.
And Staff Sergeant Lafayette Pool has survived 81 days of continuous combat.
Boyer keys his radio.
Richardson, what’s P doing? Richardson watches through binoculars as P’s Sherman, visible on the rgeline, jerks backward, fires, reverses again.
Sir, I’m not entirely sure, but it looks like he’s fighting from hull down while continuously repositioning.
He’s using the ridge for cover, popping up to fire, then backing down.
A pause.
Is it working? Stand by.
Richardson counts.
Three Panthers are burning in the German treeine.
Jesus Christ, he’s got three confirmed kills.
The radio frequency erupts.
Second platoon has reached the rgel line.
Four Shermans in hull down positions are now engaging the German flanks.
Panther commanders focused on Pool’s lone Sherman suddenly realize they are taking fire from multiple directions.
German return fire becomes disorganized.
Boyer’s command radio lights up.
Higher headquarters combat command A is monitoring the frequency.
General Morris Rose’s operations officer comes on.
What’s the situation at Minster Bush? Ber keys his handset.
Single Sherman in contact with 12 Panthers.
Platoon commander is engaging while executing reverse maneuvers to maintain hull down advantage.
One tank.
That’s suicide.
Order immediate withdrawal.
Sir, he’s already killed three enemy tanks and positioned a support element.
The Germans are breaking formation.
One sergeant is fighting 12 Panthers backward and winning.
Yes, sir.
Another pause.
Then Rose himself keys the radio.
If P breaks that Panzer company, I want a full afteraction report with tactical diagrams on my desk by 18,800 hours.
If he survives, I want him teaching this at division level.
A beat and get artillery ready in case this goes to hell.
The battle at Minster Bush lasts 17 minutes.
Pool’s Sherman reverses 43 times, moving backward up and down the ridge line, firing from different positions, making the Germans think they face a larger force.
Second platoon destroys four Panthers from flank shots.
Pool’s crew accounts for five.
Three Panthers retreat after taking non-penetrating hits.
When the shooting stops, 12 German tanks are destroyed or driven off.
Zero American casualties.
Richardson reaches P’s position as the crew is assessing damage.
Pool is sitting on his turret, calmly eating a ration bar.
His Sherman has taken seven hits.
All non-penetrating strikes on the turret armor or glancing blows off the glacus plate.
Richardson stares at the Texas farm boy who just revolutionized armored warfare.
Pool, what you just did? That’s going to be in the manual.
Pool shrugs.
Just seemed like the smart way to not die, sir.
By October 1944, the third armored division’s afteraction reports document the tactical revolution pool initiated.
Combat command A circulates his engagement at Müster Bush as a case study.
Division headquarters orders all battalion commanders to train crews in reverse position fighting.
The testing data is compelling.
Traditional Sherman versus Panther engagement statistics show American loss ratios of 3.61.
For every Panther killed, the US loses 3.6 Shermans.
But units employing Pool’s reverse position tactics report ratios improving to 1.8.1, nearly having American casualties.
The physics explain why.
A Sherman in traditional hull down position, stationary only, turret exposed, presents a frontal target of approximately 12 square ft.
A Sherman backing slowly down a reverse slope while firing presents effectively the same target, but with a critical advantage.
The target location changes.
German gunners must constantly reim as the Sherman sinks behind terrain.
The technique works best on rolling terrain, the kind of landscape dominating northeastern France and western Germany.
Armored units begin scouting routes specifically for reverse capable positions.
Reconnaissance reports start including notes ridge at 534287 suitable for reverse engagement or hill 192 provides 60ard reverse defalade.
The Battle of Aricort largescale validation.
The technique receives its largest test during the battle of Aricort.
September 1829, 1944.
The fourth armored division, incorporating lessons from the Third Armored faces the German fifth Panzer Army’s counteroffensive 113 Panthers and 262 total tanks attacking American positions.
Captain James Leech commands Company B, 37th Tank Battalion, positioned on Ridgeline south of Aricort.
When German armor attacks on September 19th, Leech’s platoon execute coordinated reverse position fighting.
Afteraction reports describe the engagement.
Company B occupied hullown positions on Eastern Ridge.
Enemy armor estimated 14x PZ hab das fafi advanced from tree line at 0847 hours.
On command, all platoon executed reverse movement to alternate positions 30 yards rearward.
Enemy fire impacted primary positions as units displaced.
Upon reaching alternate positions, platoon resumed fire.
Enemy formation broke after 8 minutes.
3x friendly tanks damaged.
None penetrated.
7x enemy tanks confirmed destroyed.
The Germans lose 86 tanks at Aricort over 10 days.
American losses 25 Shermans.
The 3.41 loss ratio in favor of the Americans.
Reverses historical patterns.
General George Patton visits the battlefield afterward and reportedly says somebody taught these boys to fight smart.
German perspective.
Captured German afteraction reports from Aracort reveal enemy confusion.
A report from the 113th Panzer Brigade states, “American tanks employ defensive tactics previously not encountered.
Enemy vehicles occupy visible positions, then disappear when engaged.
When vehicles reappear, positions have changed, requiring reacquisition and range adjustment.
This tactic negates our range advantage and creates impression of larger enemy forces.
A captured panzer commander, Leitant Klaus Bearman, provides more detail during interrogation in October 1944.
We would see the Sherman on a hill.
We shoot.
The Sherman vanishes.
We think we hit it, but then it shoots back from the same hill, but different spot.
We must find it again.
By then it has moved again.
It was like fighting ghosts.
German commanders attempt to counter the tactic by concentrating fire on suspected American positions, but this wastes ammunition and reveals German locations.
Some units try advancing rapidly to close distance, but this exposes thin side armor to hull down Shermans positioned in depth.
By November 1944, German tactical guidance warns of American defensive withdrawal fire positions.
The guidance recommends avoiding frontal attacks on ridge positions and instead flanking around American strong points, but in the terrain restrictive Herkin forest and approaches to the Ziggfrieded line, flanking options are limited.
The November 23rd demonstration.
On November 23rd, 1944, Lafayette P, now recovered from his September 19th wounding, but medically evacuated with a shattered leg, is summoned to First Army headquarters at Spa, Belgium.
General Courtney Hodgeges has authorized a tactical demonstration for division commanders.
Pool on crutches, briefs 22 armored battalion commanders on reverse position fighting.
His presentation includes terrain selection criteria, crew coordination procedures, and engagement sequence timing.
He emphasizes the technique works only with trained crews.
Attempts by untrained units result in collisions, navigation errors, and exposed positions.
Colonel Truman Budau, commanding the 67th Armored Regiment, asks the critical question.
Sergeant Pool, you’re telling us to fight while driving backward.
How many engagements did you survive using this technique before getting hit? 17, sir.
Got hit on the 18th.
And your survival rate compared to traditional tactics.
My crew never took a single casualty using reverse positions, sir.
Every time we fought traditional, advancing into contact, we got hit.
The demonstration includes live fire exercises.
Three Sherman crews trained by pool before his wounding execute reverse position drills against stationary targets representing Panthers at various ranges.
The crews achieve 73% firstround hit rates while backing down a 30-yard slope comparable to stationary gunnery accuracy.
Operational implementation.
By December 1944, reverse position fighting is incorporated into First Army’s armored operations guidance.
The technique is not mandatory.
Terrain and tactical situations often prevent its use, but becomes standard training for replacement tank crews arriving in Europe.
The Battle of the Bulge in December 1944 provides additional validation.
During German armor breakthroughs in the Arden, American tank companies use reverse position tactics to conduct delaying actions.
The Seventh Armored Division at St.
Vith employs Hulldown reverse fighting to hold positions for 3 days against overwhelming German armor, inflicting disproportionate casualties.
Major General Morris Rose, commanding the Third Armored Division, killed in action March 1945, writes, “In January 1945, the reverse position technique developed by Sergeant Pool has fundamentally altered our approach to defensive armored operations.
What began as one man’s survival instinct is now division doctrine.” The kill ratios.
Final statistics from the European theater validate the technique’s effectiveness.
Sherman units not trained in reverse position tactics.
3.6 Shermans lost per panther killed.
Sherman units trained in reverse position tactics.
1.9 Shermans lost per panther killed.
Sherman units in terrain ideal for reverse tactics.
1.2 Shermans lost per panther killed.
Between September 1944 and May 1945, the technique is credited with saving an estimated 530 American tank crew lives.
Men who would have died in traditional hull down positions but survived because their tanks could reposition while maintaining fire.
Pool’s innovation does not eliminate the Sherman’s technological disadvantage.
Panthers still have superior armor and guns, but the tactical advantage of controlled mobility in defense gives American crews a fighting chance.
The Sherman cannot win a static duel with a Panther, but a Sherman that shoots and moves even backward can survive long enough to get a killing shot.
The humble hero Lafayette P never commands tanks again after September 19th, 1944.
The advaper round that strikes in the mood 3 near Minster Bush shatters his right leg so severely that doctors amputate 8 in above the knee.
After 22 months of rehabilitation and fitting for a prosthetic leg pool opens a gas station in Cinton, Texas.
He could have retired on disability instead.
In 1948 he reinlists.
General Rodrik Allen, who commanded armor units in Europe, personally requests P return to the third armored division as an instructor.
P spends the next 12 years teaching tank mechanics and gunnery at Fort Knox, training the crews who will fight in Korea.
The reverse position technique he pioneered becomes standard instruction at the armor school.
Manuals published in 1947, 1952, and 1968 include sections on reverse movement under fire and haul down displacement techniques.
The tactic is taught to M26 Persing crews, M46 patent crews, M48 and M60 crews, and eventually M1 Abrams crews.
Modern American tanks incorporate design features descended from Pool’s innovation.
The M1 Abrams has 10° of gun depression compared to the Sherman’s 12 and a reverse speed of 25 LAME, faster than many WD2 tanks could move forward.
Army doctrine emphasizes shoot and scoot, fire from one position, immediately displaced to another, fire again.
Pool executed this in 1944 by backing up.
Today’s tankers do it driving forward or backward with equal facility.
Pool receives the Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star, Legion of Merit, and Purple Heart.
France awards him the Legion of Honor and Qua Deare.
Belgium awards the Furair.
He refuses all interview requests during his lifetime, telling reporters, “I just did my job.” He retires from the army in September 1960 as a chief warrant officer.
He works as a preacher for $25 per week, coaches little league baseball, and avoids veterans reunions.
When the third Armored Division Veterans Association tracks him down in the 1980s, P initially refuses to speak to them.
Finally, in 1989, P attends one reunion.
A colonel from the armor school presents him with a gift.
The current field manual for tank platoon tactics.
Pool opens to chapter 6, defensive operations.
The first section is titled reverse position fighting pool technique.
Pool stares at the page, then quietly says, “I just wanted to not die.
That’s all it was.” Lafayette Greenpool dies in his sleep May 30th, 1991.
age 71 in Keen, Texas.
His obituary in the Killen Daily Herald mentions his Silver Star.
It does not mention he revolutionized armored warfare.
At his funeral, three veterans from his tank crew attend.
Wilbert Richards, 88, Williser, 86, and Bert Close, 84.
Dell Bogs had died in 1982.
Richards, the driver pool, called baby delivers the eulogy.
Pool taught us to fight backward because going forward would get us killed.
But really, he taught us to think, to not follow doctrine when doctrine meant death, to survive by being smarter.
That’s what great tank commanders do.
They keep their crews alive.
At Fort Knox today, tank commander students study the Battle of Minster Bush.
They analyze terrain, sightelines, firing sequences.
The lesson concludes, “When technological advantage favors the enemy, tactical innovation equalizes the fight.” Sergeant Pool’s reverse position technique saved hundreds of American lives because one man refused to accept that Shermans couldn’t beat Panthers.
They couldn’t in a fair fight.
So, he stopped fighting fair.
The greatest military innovations come not from laboratories or procurement offices, but from battlefields where soldiers face impossible situations and invent solutions.
Lafayette Pool faced 12 Panthers with one Sherman and survived because he fought backward.
Today’s army still teaches that lesson.
Sometimes the way forward is in reverse.
