I read a book a few years back, I’ll dig up the title if anyone is interested, written by the TC of an M1A1 named “Dixi Normus”. They took a turret bustle hit and the whole rear of the turret from the bustle doors back was completely demolished but the whole crew survived. There’s a few photos of the aftermath in Squadrons’ most recent Abrams book.
I would be interested in the title when you got time.
Sure, I keep my reading list at work. Will get it to you Monday.
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I have the Squadron book. That’s one of the tanks I always wondered/hoped the crew survived. That tank was blown to hell.
Ken.
Decided to trek down to the library to see if it was on the shelves. The book is “A Soldier’s Promise: The Heroic True Story of an American Soldier and an Iraqi Boy,” Simon Spotlight Entertainment (New York, NY) 2006. First Sergeant Daniel Hendrix served with Dragon company of the 3rd ACR during OIF I & III. The photo in the book looks to be a crop of the first one on page 44 of the squadron book. The caption reads " Almost three years after First Sergeant Hedrix’s tank was destroyed in a mock battle at Fort Polk, Louisiana, he survived the explosion and catastrophic loss of a tank in the northwest region of Iraq during his return in the summer of 2005." The strange thing is I’m not sure that episode is even mentioned in the book as the story ends with the start of his second deployment in April of 2005. Correction, it was an M1A2, not A1.
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It is really hard to believe that anyone made it out of that tank, the turret interior is completely burnt out. Did they bail out immediately or after the initial bustle detonation ? The semi ready ammo door is open or missing, when did this happen? l would love to hear an account of what happened.
Back to the storage issue… I lived on my tank for 6 months straight. No trip into town, no rotate back to some place better, Just the crew and the tank. We moved enough so as not to build any semblence of shelter. A hummer would stop by every couple of days to drop off MRE’s and mail. We got water when we refuled. The tarp dry rotted and what was left wasn’t much bigger than a bed sheet by the time we were done. Our uniforms were not replaced when they were torn or ripped. After 6 months we looked like gypsies with missmatched uniform clothing. We lived out of a alice pack and a douffel bag stowed in the bussle rack. Thats why you see so much stuff piled on a tank. We had no expectation of resupply of anything other than food, water and fuel.
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Yep, that’s it in a nutshell.
Ken.
That’s the reality yes