“ OH MY GOD!” thought tanker Joe Cotten. “ We’re shooting machine guns at a Tiger Royal!” It was late December 1944 in the Alsace-Lorraine region of France, near the German border. From inside his M5 Stuart light tank, Cotten had spotted the enemy heavy tank at the bottom of a ridge and had fired at it with his machine gun when he made his realization. The German panzer was stuck on some train lines and had thrown a track. The driver inside was gunning the engine and rocking forward and back, trying to free the behemoth from its trap. Cotten had already fired on a few soldiers escaping the tank, but its crew was obviously still intact.