The Tanker Tapes
an audiobook on CD
The 712th Tank Battalion landed in Normandy on June 28, 1944, and spent the next 311 days in combat, many of them actively engaged with the enemy. The battalion was formed in September of 1943, but its roots go back to the horse cavalry in 1941.
Aaron Elson began attending reunions of the battalion, with which his father served, in 1987. Shortly thereafter, he began recording the stories of the battalion's veterans. He put some of those stories in a pair of books, "Tanks for the Memories" and "They Were All Young Kids."
As he drove around the country interviewing veterans of World War II, he would listen to cassettes of his earlier interviews. "Gee," he thought, "these would make great audiobooks."
Thus "The Tanker Tapes" was born. These are experimental CDs, edited versions of a handful of interviews Elson conducted over the years. Together they provide a glimpse of the rich and colorful history of the 712th, as well as of the horse cavalry in which the battalion had its pre-armored roots, and of the Great Depression in which the character of many of its members was forged.
The stories on "The Tanker Tapes" are presented in their own voices. These are the stories of ordinary men in an extraordinary time: stories about war and fear, about courage and cowardice, about the Depression, the Civilian Conservation Corps, hard times, horses and tanks, about barroom brawls and mortal combat.
The 712th Tank Battalion was activated on Sept. 23, 1943, but many of its original members entered the service in the horse cavalry in 1941.
These are the veterans who tell their stories in "The Tanker Tapes"
George Bussell, Interview with a Tank Driver: One of the most colorful
characters in the 712th Tank Battalion, Bussell drove an M4A3 Sherman
tank from Normandy to Czechoslovakia.
real audio
mp3 He
was awarded the Bronze Star and had three tanks shot out from under him. Yet his
most serious injuries were sustained in Phenix City, Alabama, where he got beat
up in a bar after asking a girl to dance.
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mp3
"There Goes Smoky": A three-hour, three CD audiobook in itself excerpted from a
2005 interview with then-88 year old Ed "Smoky" Stuever. Stuever grew up in the throes of the Depression. His
father lost the farm and young Ed went into the Civilian Conservation Corps,
where he helped build the Skokie Lagoon in Illinois. He was part of a trainload of 500
recruits sent from the Chicago area to the California desert in 1941 to fill out
the ranks of the 11th Cavalry. As a maintenance
sergeant in the 712th Tank Battalion, Stuever spent 11 months in combat.
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The Death of Shorty: A fourth, hour-long CD excerpted from earlier interviews
with Smoky Stuever in which he describes the events leading up to the death of
his close buddy, Marion "Shorty" Kubeczko, in Normandy.
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Dale Albee: The 712th had 14 sergeants who earned battlefield commissions.
Albee, who enlisted in the horse cavalry in 1936, was one of them. This riveting
double-CD offers a rare glimpse of both the highs and lows of combat.
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Jim Flowers and the Battle of Hill 122: "You ask the right questions," Jim
Flowers told Elson
the
first time he interviewed Flowers about Hill 122. It wasn't hard, though, to ask
the right question; all you had to do was say to Flowers, "Tell me about Hill
122," and then sit back for the next three hours and not interrupt this
recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross who left both of his legs on a
piece of "bloody French real estate." Flowers speaks slowly in a deliberate
Texas drawl, but give him a listen and you'll hear one of the most dramatic
stories to come out of World War II.
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Sam and Joe: Sam Cropanese, assistant driver, and Joe Bernardino, loader, were
crew members of the same tank which was knocked out in the battle of the Falaise
Gap. Interviewed separately, they both talk of some of the same things in a
riveting 45-minute audio CD.
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In all, there are 11 CDs in this collection, or more than 11 hours of entertaining history. More CDs are in the works, but this collection will give you an excellent picture of life in a tank in World War II, and of the universal experience of combat.