If we move to the commanders weapon station here, its also got the caliber 50 machine gun up top, where the commander is, and it also has two m1919. 30 caliber machine guns. One of those is mounted coaxially with the main gun. The other is mounted here and is manned by the gunner. And if you take a look at the bow gun, you can move that up and down. That 30 caliber machine gun is protruding from the armored bow mount and hes got his ammunition in the back and to the back to catch the bag to catch the shell casings as they come out. If you look at the top of the hatch, over his right shoulder, there is a periscope there, and as its name implies its a , prismatic periscope that sticks up through that space. Inside that periscope is a lens reticle in it, and he uses that to fire the machine gun. This is another one. This one is controlled by the gunner. He has some switches in his crew station that control part of the main gun and the switch to the fight with machine guns. His part with the gunners periscope comes up from the inside, and that is how he is looking. One of the things you will notice with that is, because they are looking through a periscope, the field of vision is fairly limited. The critical thing for the wasander was reanna to reidentify the target, he would have to lay the main gun on the target such that the gunner can see it. So typically, the tank commander will announce the engagement. What he does is the preparatory command. He will alert the gunner, say gunner. The next thing he will do is announce the type of ammunition. In the case of an enemy tank, it would be armor piercing ammunition. That was called shock back in the day. And he is going to give a target description tank, or armored car, whatever it might be. While hes doing that, once the gun is laid where the gunner can pick it up, the gunner is identified. He now sees the target within his steel division. Field of vision. The motor is now taking that shot round, that armor piercing round, loading it into the main gun. When he gets that into the main gun and arms the main gun, takes it off safe, he will go up. In the process, the commander will make an estimation of range, and as soon as he gets it, he will announce a range to the enemy target. That was particularly important, these tanks, because there was no organic range and capacity on this tank. It was purely an estimate. Based on the estimated range of the target, the gunner will use what is appropriate for the target. That sounds complicated, with a good crew, it would happen in somewhere between four to six seconds. A lot of the training was the honing of those skills to get the round off that quickly. This is a tank that is 75 years old. These days, its dramatically different. We now have laser range finders. S that downm light and in microseconds, that range is calculated and it all goes into computers. The range at which the enemy target is moving downrange is all factored in. It was dramatically different for the soldiers that crude these tanks during the Second World War. These tanks during the Second World War. Most of the soldiers on these things were 17 to 20 years old. They were armored crewmen during the Second World War. In fact, the guys who were 24 , 25 years old were kind of oldtimers. Real oldtimers like me would not have been on one. But they were young men that did this. One of the important things about the Army Heritage center, this is great for people to see, the armyocus of Heritage Education center is the soldiers. In the case of world war ii, they were from all over. They were first deployed in north africa and through the italian campaign. Went into europe. Of course, we had them in the South Pacific throughout the war, and that is really the focal point of this, to convey the sacrifice the soldiers accrued in these things. Thats the important part. They are an interesting backdrop to the whole story. We use them to help convey the story to the visiting public. The sherman tank was one of the two most prolific tanks of the war in terms of numbers manufactured. The sherman series, there were over 49,000 of these tanks manufactured during the Second World War. The only production totals that exceeded this tank where the theet 234 series were soviet 234 series. Series. This series of tanks was used by everyone of the allied nations during the Second World War, including england, the soviet union, and even the nationalist chinese received received sherman tanks as a result of the lease program. It was a vehicle that had a strategic effect on the war because of the numbers that were out there and the number of allied nations that used them. This tank was infamously reliable. It actually had an operational readiness rate of 94 . In other words, it was ready 94 of the time, as opposed to some of the german tanks which rates usually hovered around 50 or 60 . So the tank was very, very reliable. This has the earlier suspension one system. It is called the vbss suspension. What that means is the shock absorbers are mounted vertically in these housings. The later Suspension System was volume spring s,spension system, or the hvs and the difference is the shock absorbers were mounted horizontally. The later system gave the tank a that a right more importantly, a better firing platform. As a tank is coming to a stop, you get a lot less roll back and forth. This is the earlier system. As we move around the tank, you will notice all of the equipment that is hanging on the outside. The tank has a crew of five. By thehe position here caliber 50 machine gun, you have the tank commander, and then it turret you have the gunner and the loader who loads the main gun. Hull, you in the have two. You have the bow gunner, seated down here in the hull, and to his left, youve got the driver. Youll notice that we have a lot of equipment on the outside of the tank. The reason is those five soldiers lived in this thing, essentially, when they were in combat. It was very important to keep the compartment clear of equipment because it is cramped in there and the more equipment you have, the more difficult it is for the soldiers to do their job. Typically in combat, you will see one of these tanks arrayed with things around the outside. If we move around the rear, we can take a look at the engine. This particular tank is powered by a ford gaa v8 engine. It was designed as an aircraft engine. It is an aluminum block. There were a number of different engine configurations including radials and diesels. But this is probably the most common engine in the series throughout the war. Dual overhead cam, dual carb orators, and it generates about 500 horsepower that would move the tank at 40 mileperhour, terraindependent. The more difficult the terrain, the less speed you would get. If we sneak around the back, one of the grill doors is open. You can kind of get a peek inside. That shows one of the two. Its a v8, four cylinders on each side. Again, very, very reliable engine. In this particular configuration of the tank, the engine is in the rear of the tank. There is a driveshaft that goes the length of the vehicle to the front. That is where the transmission and the transaxle and the final drives are. The advantage to the set up is that should the engine or the is easy ton fail, it replace them. A lot of them were mated, you had to pull the whole thing out if either one of them broke. With this, you can pull out one or the other. They were easy to work on which contributed to reliability. If we look again at the turret, the tank had a number of innovations that are kind of unique to the Second World War, and one of those was the electrohydraulic turret. It does have a power system. It can be traversed manually, but it does have a power system. Its electrohydraulic and it gives the ability to rotate this turret 360 degrees in 15 seconds, which is very, very quick. What that contributes to is the ability of the group to move from target to target and engage those targets. That was a significant advantage. Another innovation was something called stabilization. It had stabilization in the vertical plane, which meant you could actually engage targets on the move. The gun would track up and down. Again, that was really innovative. As we compare that tank, the m4 sherman to the german tanks, this one could move 360 degrees in 15 seconds, it would take those german tanks, in the case of a tiger, a minute to do that. It gives a tremendous advantage. Again, infamously reliable. Again, one of the earlier versions, you will see these applique armor plates, several of them. Art two on this side, one on this side. In the earlier versions, this is where the ammunition was stored. In the upper hull. Really not a very good position, but they realized it was vulnerable. They started adding these armored plates as a means to protect that ammunition. Early on, when they made their combat debut, they actually debuted in north africa in british hands. And they develop somewhat of a reputation of being death traps because of explosions. A lot of people attributed that to gasoline. It was actually the ammunition combusting when the hull was breached. Later versions, they took the ammunition, moved it from the upper hull and put it down in the lower hull. They are called wet storage tanks. The ammunition in the later versions is stored in a doublewalled metal box. Between the boxes is a solution of glycerin and water. What that does is should the hull be breached in that area, it lowers the Kinetic Energy of the incoming rounds such that the ammunition would no longer combust. That improved the conditions of these about 75 . That is another interesting point about the sherman, it was a process of improvement throughout the Second World War. It was designed in the late 1930s. As the world power started to see the advent of armored warfare on a grand scale, it was again designed in the late 1930s. When it was designed, it was designed to go specifically german median tanks, the main tanks of the day, and it was actually very effective against those. As the war evolved, new technologies came out of the german Armored Vehicles that challenged it quite a bit. But they continue to improve the tank throughout the war. This version has the 75 millimeter, the later versions would later go to 76 millimeter. Although that does not sound like much, it gave them capacity for high velocity ammunition. That made it a lot more effective. One of the things i also like to point out about these is, again, the production volume, over 49,500 of these tanks produced, comparatively, all of german armor production to the Second World War, everything they made was just about 49,000. Of the tigers and the Panther Tanks that a lot of folks hear about, there were just over 1660 tigers for world war ii. Just over 1600. With the panther, just over 6600. So collectively, if you compare those numbers, in the aggregate of the german production versus 49,500 of this specific tank, you have an appreciation that this tank had a strategic impact on the war. A lot of the tankers that were interviewed after the war, one of them was my uncle, who i spoke to. When i asked him about the tigers and panthers, he said he never saw one. He said the only ones he ever saw were blown up by the side of the road. They were not necessarily that worried about them. That said, they are a great defensive tank. If you are coming across an open area and you are facing a tiger tank with the 88 millimeter gun or even the panther tank, youre probably not going to have a good day. What that gave those tanks was something called standoff range. In other words, they could effectively engage us before we can engage them. That was the advantage. But we certainly had numbers on our side. A lot of people will point to the fact that it would take five shermans to take on a panther or a tiger. What some of those folks overlook is that our lowest level of organization in armored warfare was five tanks. That was the platoon. Thats the way we employed them. With the speed of the tank, what a lot of the tankers did during the Second World War was maneuver to a position of advantage over the panthers and armor s where there where their armor was weaker. Very easy to operate. A very capable weapon. Do you have any stories from your uncle . He had some interesting stories. Some of them he was reluctant to talk about. He served the normandy campaign, through the battle of the bulge. I had a number of photos that he left me. Some of them were fairly interesting. There is a picture of his tank and crew with, for some reason, a bass fiddle strapped to the side of that tank. Where they came up with a bass fiddle and why someone felt they had to take it with them, he had fiddle ondle bass the side of his tank as well. We try to convey some of that, if we walk around this, youll see that we have a case of wine bottles on the back here. Again, you are talking about soldier life on board these things. Essentially the crews lived on these. Whenever they had an opportunity to get some fresh eggs or a few bottles of wine, they were prone to grab that stuff and take it with them. You will see our coffee pots there. A lot of it was just that crew interaction. That was the essence of being a tank crewman during the Second World War, because they truly became a family. For this to run effectively, all five soldiers had to be on the piece of music. They have to be working together to get this done. A lot of people dont realize the importance of the driver. But if we are moving across a piece of terrain and it comes time for us to engage the target, that driver was also sensitive to fire command. What hes doing is bringing the tank to a stop. His ability to do that has a lot to do with our firing platform. And they would develop an act that if they pulled back and brake too quickly, its rocking back and forth. So they would be keen to the fire command too and would ease into position. When we are ready to engage, they would give us a stable platform. The bow gunner, very critical in terms of personnel targets. Personnel. Another thing that was done with this particular gun, we talked about ranging a little bit. Ranging was an important part of getting steel on target. You could also use this gun to range. Gunbow gunner could use his to put out rounds and estimate range. That was another way to range. The primary purpose was antipersonnel. Again, that crew really had to develop an affinity to work together. When these things were attacked and successfully engaged, the average loss was about one crewman. Every time that we had a sherman hit, we typically would lose one crewman. It would depend a lot where the sherman was engaged, and in most cases the other three would get out. But in the aggregate, the survival rates for the cruise was pretty good. Was prettycrews good. A lot has been made to say the whole crew would go up. There are cases where there was a catastrophic kill where the tank would combust and everybody would go up, but on average, when the tank was successfully engaged by an enemy vehicle, we would lose one crewman and the n two to three would get out. If you look at any photograph of u. S. Armored crewman during the Second World War, it would be tough to find any two soldiers on the same tank wearing the same thing. There was a lot of variety. Im wearing one of the early sets of coveralls, which were very common for armored crews. This is one of the early sets. This is a type one coverall. We have a gentleman up top wearing a model 41 jacket. He has a pair of trousers on which would have been the basic combat uniform. Typically, you will see a lot of variety. Everything from coveralls to the two piece uniform that was common for more soldiers. One of the things we have, this is the armored crew helmets which were unique to Armored Vehicle operations during the Second World War. If youre familiar with football in the 1930s, they were actually designed by rawlings and you can see the logo in there. And it was really just a crash helmet. Fiber shell on the outside with a leather liner. It offered no ballistics protection. It was a crash helmet to protect your head inside the vehicle. Most importantly, it also included the Communications Gear that the crew would use to communicate inside the tank. That would consist of the headsets that you see here. In the ear flaps. These cables would go and plug into communications boxes. There would be five of those, one for each of the crew positions, and that would give their crew the capability to talk to one another inside the tank. So the tank commander could tell the driver to go left or right and tell the gunner to engage targets, whatever. Again, this would have been a common piece of equipment for all armored crews during the Second World War. There were some other things that were available, depending on the weather. There was a winter combat uniform, that consisted of a set set of wool lined overalls and a special tanker jacket. This is a top for the winter combat uniform. They are commonly referred to as tanker jackets, high pockets, blanket lining in them. A lot of units were issued these, but they were really most common among the armor crews. As we move around the side here, weve got some of the weapons that would have been common in the Armored Vehicles. Vehicle,e armored there were a couple types of submachine guns that the crews were armed with if they ever had to get off the tank and go set up a post or identify the enemy before they got close. This is one of those m3 submachine guns. This is actually an m3a1. It was a. 45caliber machine gun. As you can tell, very easy to massproduce these things. It is a series of stamped tubes. 45 caliber, so it fired the same type of round as our pistols. M1911a1. Each of the armored crewman would have had one of these. This and the m3a1, or the grease gun, would fire the same ammunition. And of course hand grenades, and a lot of this stuff that would have been used by the infantry was also common with the armored crews, with some special applications. We walk around the side here and take a look at some of the other equipment we have. And youll see an array of tools. What a lot of folks dont realize, the tank crews spent more times maintaining these things than they did fighting on them. Obviously, by their very nature, they require a lot of maintenance. Among the things we would check on a routine basis was track tension. Because track tension does a couple of things for you. Of course it assists with maneuverability, but most importantly, it keeps the track on the wheels here. If your track tension is not right, you run the risk of throwing track. In other words, the track comes off and that is clearly not a good situation. The maintenance piece was a part of it. It has to be greased routinely. This tank had a fuel capacity of 264 gallons. It actually had four fuel tanks in it. On either side, two on the port side, two on the starboard side. It would give it a cruising range of 265 miles. In todays vernacular, its common to hear miles per gallon. In the case of these, its typically gallons per mile. This tank will run about a mile on each gallon of fuel, so it had a cruising range of 250 miles. We have all the fuel cans here. As these things were refueled, it was not uncommon to have the entire battalion pulled over on the side of the road and a fleet of trucks pull up alongside with fuel cans, and they would transfer fuel from the cans onto the tank. A pretty common display. The insignia here is unique. The unit that we represent is the 68th tank battalion during the Second World War. And we do that because a couple of our members are veteran tankers, including myself. We served in the 68th armor regiment in the u. S. Army. When we got into the practice of trying to bring these vintage Armored Vehicles back to life, we researched our unit history. 68thund that there was a tank battalion. This character on the side was actually the battalions mascot during the Second World War, and he comes from a walt disney cartoon in the 1930s, called the tortoise and the hare. His name was toby the tortoise. When the battalion adopted him as the mascot, Walt Disney Studios modified it for that purpose, they put the tank crew helmet, the goggles, the boxing gloves. He was the battalions mascot throughout the war. In fact, there is ample photographic evidence that shows toby prominently displayed on battalion tanks throughout the war. That would have been on the tanks. The field phones, what were kind of representing here is a tank in an assembly area, where we would circle the wagons, so to speak, service the weapons, service the tank. It would generally be a lull in the action, and it was common to to thee tanks, one other, so they could communicate over secure means, which were the field phones, as opposed to the radio. They would have these linked tank to tank. One of the things at the Army HeritageEducation Center is an amazing repository of combat after action reviews, Empirical Data referencing the engagement of these tanks. There is a wealth of information that has been published by a host of different authors. About not only the american vehicles, but also the german vehicles, etc. Sh there is a wealth of information out there about this stuff. But one of the best repositories is right here at the center. They have a great cast of archivists that can actually help people to research this kind of stuff. And with the focus on the center, on the individual soldier, its great that they also offer the capacity for individuals to research their ancestors combat history. You can come in and find your relative or your ancestor and track his or her experiences through combat based on what they did. Thats a unique ability they have here too. Were going to take a look inside here. We get an appreciation of what it is like to live inside or fight inside one of these things. We have command Sergeant Major retired, ron lamm. Ron is a u. S. Army master gunner. And then we have jeff hart down there doing the honors as our loader. You can see what it is like in here. This tank is deceptively large. And the reason is, the way it was demilled, the breach was cut off of this. And so you would have the main breach back into about here when this thing was actually active. The breach is what we load the where we load the main gun round. It contains the explosive force and expels the cartridge out. Again, that has all been taken out of this tank. As cramped as it might look in here, its worse in a fully operational one. Ron is in the gunners seat here. We will let him walk through what he has in terms of controls and switches and things like that. This is an early production turret. Around 1942 for production. The elevation mechanism is here. It is a manual elevation. This right here is the hydraulic system for traversing the turret. That traversing mechanism, part of it is missing from this tank, but it would have been like an upside down horseshoetype affair. The manual traverse is here. And this has a braking system on it. We squeeze on it and traverse turns slowly. This is called this indicator and it gives you a reference point. Once you have a specific point to aim from, it can give you degrees and mills, where you are in relation to that aiming point. Power switch up here, gunner switch down on the floor, and there is a foot pedal for the triple firing system under my left foot. Basically it was an electric solenoid that slapped a rod that mechanically fired the gun. So it was a firing pin that fired. The tank, additionally, had stabilization in the vertical but not the horizontal. And it was probably one of the first tanks to have stabilization along with the m3 light tank. This is an early production tank, and the gunners sight was a periscope mounted right here and linked to the main gun. The problem with the early had noas it magnification in it. What the gunner was looking through, it was what it looks like outside. He could not magnify anything. They were difficult to operate. Further modifications included a telescope right over here. That would have had a separate sight that was vertical. Each of the crosshairs had a number on it. When the commander estimated the range, he would lay on that crosshair to fire. As we go to the loader side, this is the loader station. What we see along the floor, along the perimeter, thats the ready rack. So when youre in action, you would have a variety of shells here. Depending on the type of target you were encountering, high explosive, white phosphorus, etc. , or some combination of the above. It would be pretty easy access. Again, when he is loading, in you can imagine the breach coming back this far. In the firing sequence, the tank commander gives the firing command, and each of the crew position, as well as the driver, would play a critical part in the firing. Round is fired. Once it is fired, the breach will drop and the spent shell casing will come out automatically. It will slam up against the back of this turret pretty loudly and violently. Then the loader will put another shell into the breach should we need to reengage the target. Or take on another target. Surprisingly, its louder on the outside of the tank than on the inside. A lot of it is muffled. A lot of the concussive force and sound goes out the front. When the breach drops, the round flies out, the term turret is inundated with smoke coming off the ground. It is kind of a violent thing until you get used to the rhythm. One thing important to point out about these turrets, when ret is potential slowing or moving, 360 degrees in 15 seconds, you can see there is plenty of opportunity to do this with your foot or with a piece of equipment. If you do that when the turret is moving, you will probably have that foot torn off. Because your foot will not stop the tank, so it is a confined space. It is a pretty violent space, and potentially, unless everyone is situationally aware, it is a deadly space. It is confined and very hazardous operating environment. What we have in the back of the turret here, this is an array of radio sets. This is the main unit. These are sc508 radio systems. In the american tanks, everybody in the tank crew could talk to one another. So the tank commander could talk to the driver, the ball gunner, the bow gunner, the loader. Everybody could hear the commands of the tank commander. But in only two of the tanks in a platoon did they have the capability to transmit to the other tanks. That would have been the platoon leaders tank and the platoon sergeants tank. Everybody else, they can hear but cant transmit. These radios gave them that capability. Ineach one of the stations each of the stations, most of them have been removed from the tank but there is an intercom box mounted here. The helmets have some cabling that gives them some capability to adjust the volume and those kinds of things. What they also would wear is something called a throat mic. Throatened around your with an elastic band. There were two microphones that sat here on the side of your adams apple, and that is how it would pick up your voice and transmit. A lot of these guys hands are py busy. Theyre not using microphones and those kinds of things. Heres a lot of storage these are all storage boxes. Typically for from for some of the small arms ammunition. Ofs would be chockfull small arms ammunition for machine guns and main gun rounds. It was pretty much what we call g. I. Proof because most of these positions are marked. Binoculars, 50 caliber barrels, evenguishers, canteens have their proper place in the tank. The reason for that, the amount of activity going on here and at the pace that it is going on, keeping the compartment clear is very important. To make sure we dont have equipment stuck when it turns. That is a brief look inside a sherman tank. A lot of the guys in our organization, our veteran army tankers are retired. I enlisted in 1978, commissioned in 1980, and retired in 2009. I started on the m48 tanks, which was not much different in many respects, and i finished on dealer the early version of the m1 tanks. For us, its a labor of love to keep the history of these things alive. To talk to the public about the experience of soldiers on them, and to be on them again is special for us. Most importantly, to convey the stories of the soldiers and to the history of the u. S. Army alive. As the tanks keep on charging. It is on, on, on to victory. Let the enemy see our might. Victory, ng on to youre watching American History tv, all weekend, every weekend on cspan3. To join the conversation, like cspanhistory. This past thursday, the Dwight D Eisenhower memorial was dedicated to the president s world war ii leadership and twoterm presidency were remembered at a site off of the National Mall and at the base of capitol hill. Here is a preview. As greta pointed out, this is theday, and as i extended 101st, lets go, so here you go. Greetings to all of our guests here tonight, and to those of you watching, now we wish we could all be together in person to celebrate the completion of this magnificent memorial, however, the legacy of dwight the eisenhower cannot be constrained by the size of the reflectivese it is and the freedoms we live every day in america. The memorial designer and his partners are unfortunately unable to join us tonight, but if the pandemic taught us anything, it is that you dont have to be in the same place together, so frank, i know that. Our team and you are watching the brilliance of this memorial will reverberate around the world and live the legacy of dwight the eisenhower to unending global audiences. Tonight, as we dedicate this memorial, we stand on the shoulders of some giants who made it possible, ted stevens, murkowski wholisa kept this whole other effort to live through her great support. [applause] at any rate, we could not have done this without you, lisa, and i appreciated. I also want to thank my fellow commissioners who allowed us to conduct our business in a bipartisan way in the man we honor tonight. I want to thank one person in particular, who has already been thanked, and that is bob dole. Bravelyan ive fought on the battlefields of italy under ikes command, though gravely wounded. He fought both he fought his way back to both health and strength. He applied the same tenacity of spirit on behalf of this memorial. Because of his tireless efforts, the remaining heroes of the greatest generation can now come theirnd finally salute commanding officer. Watch the whole program at 8 00 p. M. Eastern here on American History tv. By congress in 1999, the dwight the eisenhower memorial occupies a four acre park near the u. S. Capitol across the street from the Smithsonian National arrow and space museum. Up next, a 30 minute tour of the new memorial. Following that, we talked to Washington Post architecture to hearhilip kent 00 his thoughts on the architects and completed work. Them victoria take well, Deputy Director of the