Only 254 Shermans Were Built Like This. One Broke Into Bastogne

On December 26th, 1944, the first American tank to break the siege of Bastogne was one of only 254 Shermans built to take the first shot. Its crew called it Cobra King. In early 1944, the US Army asked for 250 heavy tanks to break through the Siegfried Line, and no heavy tank was ready. So Fisher Body, the General Motors division that built car bodies for Chevrolets and Cadillacs, took the M4A3 Sherman and turned it into the heaviest Sherman of the war: four inches of armor on the front, about six on the turret, seven around the gun, and roughly 42 tons ready for battle. Fisher finished all 254 by July 1944. They went first, as point tanks. Near Lohn in November 1944, one of them was hit four times by a German 88 from 800 yards. At 4:50 in the afternoon of December 26th, Cobra King of the 37th Tank Battalion, 4th Armored Division, commanded by Lt. Charles Boggess, reached the 101st Airborne's engineers and broke the siege of Bastogne. More than sixty years later, it was found standing outside a US Army base in Germany. SOURCES Tanks Encyclopedia, "M4A3E2 Jumbo Assault Tank" U.S. Army, "'Cobra King' led 4th Armored Division column that relieved Bastogne" (army.mil) U.S. Army, "Tank that helped end Battle of the Bulge takes place in Army history" (army.mil) U.S. Army Europe press release, "Cobra King History" (2009) Wikipedia, "Cobra King (tank)", "Creighton Abrams", "Fisher Body", "Grand Blanc Metal Center" NEW BOOK: America Needed It. Thirty true stories of the things that won World War II. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HN5JRNMR 0:00 The Sherman That Led the Way 2:00 The Danger of the Point Tank 5:23 The Plan to Reinforce the Sherman 7:37 Body by Fisher: Building the Jumbo 16:03 Cobra King and the Road to Bastogne 22:55 The Lost History of a Gate Guard #ww2 #shermantank #battleofthebulge