The most recent episode of War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It was about Bob Levine, who recently passed away at the age of 97. It was Bob who said to me, "If you want stories, you've got to interview prisoners of war," and that's what got me started doing just that. Today I'd like you to meet…
War As My Fathers Tank Battalion Knew It
by Aaron Elson
Aaron Elson went to a reunion of the 712th Tank Battalion in 1987, seven years after his father passed away. Aaron was so moved by the stories the veterans shared that he returned two reunions later with a tape recorder. The rest is history. Oral history.
Latest Episodes
Bob Levine was among the first replacements in the 90th Infantry Division in Normandy. He was wounded and captured in the battle for Hill 122, and had a leg amputated by a German doctor. Decades later, with the help of historian Henri Levaufre of Perier, Bob was able to meet the family of the German…
George Noorigian is one of the fliers featured in my new book, "Up Above the Clouds to Die," about the most spectacular air battle you've probably never heard of.
Read an excerpt from the book at aaronelson.com or check out the "Look Inside the Book" feature at amazon.
This episode is my ful…
War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It is a podcast about the 712th Tank Battalion in particular and World War II in general. I'm Aaron Elson. In 2005 I recorded this interview with Dr. Jack Prior, a battalion surgeon in the 10th Armored Division. If you've seen Band of Brothers, and who hasn't, …
Thank you for sticking with War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It for the past three months while I was rewriting and expanding my first book, Tanks for the Memories, now available at aaronelson.com, ebay and amazon. War As My Father's Tank Battalion is about the 712th Tank Battalion in particul…
First off, I want to thank all of the listeners who stuck with Myfatherstankbattalion through a three month hiatus while I worked on the greatly expanded third edition of Tanks for the Memories, which is now available at Amazon in paperback, hardcover and for Kindle and will soon be available on my …
In this episode, we meet Ed Hays, a B17 tail gunner who in 1998 traveled to Germany to meet the German fighter pilot who shot his plane down and who, in turn, was shot down by Ed's crew. But first a couple of announcements. I'll be exhibiting at the Greenwood Lake 2021 Air Show August 13 to 15, whic…
War has a way a producing iconic sayings, from "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes" at Bunker Hill in the American Revolution, to "I've not yet begun to fight" in the War of 1812, to "Retreat Hell! We just got here" at Belleau Wood in World War I, to "By the grace of god and a few Mar…
War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It is a podcast about the 712th Tank Battalion in particular and World War II in general. I'm Aaron Elson. Where I used to live in New Jersey there was a remarkable group of ex-prisoners of war. There was Ed Hays of Ridgewood, who traveled with his family to Be…
Thank you for listening to War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It, a podcast about the 712th Tank Battalion in particular and World War II in general. I'd like to give a shoutout to Naval Air Station Wildwood, which invited me to exhibit at their recent Wings & Things event, and also to the Readi…
Part 2 of my 1994 interview with Don and Evelyn Knapp was quite a surprise, as it includes a discussion of my first book, Tanks for the Memories. Don passed away recently at 102 years of age. I found it interesting to hear me talking 27 years ago about my plans for the future. It would be three year…
Don Knapp passed away last week. He was 102 years old. "I was no hero," Don said when I interviewed him in 1994 at the Cincinnati reunion of the 712th Tank Battalion. More than a thousand people who posted reactions and comments in the Battle of the Bulge Facebook group on the notice of his passing …
While crossing the Atlantic on his way to join my father's 712th Tank Battalion as a replacement, Billy Wolfe wrote in a letter to his mother and sisters, "The ocean is so blue it looks like I could dip my pen and write with it." Those words have always stuck with me. Billy burned to death in a tank…
Distinguished Service Cross recipient Jim Flowers lost parts of both legs in Normandy. Pfc. Bob Levine, who was following one of Flowers' tanks when he was wounded and captured, had a leg amputated by a German surgeon. Lieutenant Jim Gifford was struck by a bullet which protruded from his head near …
Combat engineer Chuck Hurlbut landed on Omaha Beach in the early morning hours of D-Day. His compelling interview is included in my Oral History Audiobook "The D-Day Tapes," along with six other interviews, available in my eBay store and at oralhistoryaudiobooks.com.
Speaking of D-Day, I'll be exhi…
Faced with a choice of joining the Army, the Marines or the Navy, Angelo Crapanzano asked his father, who served aboard a submarine tender in World War I, for advice. Join the Navy, his dad said. You'll eat well, and have a place to sleep. So Angelo joined the Navy and became a motor machinist's mat…
In 1994 I read "The Forgotten Dead," by Ken Small, about Exercise Tiger, the ill-fated practice landing for D-Day sometimes known as Slapton Sands, a stretch of beach on the English coast that resembled Utah Beach. In the middle of the night German e-boats, torpedo carrying surface boats. infiltrate…
Occasionally when doing an interview, I'm treated to a bit of ancillary history. Once, when I was listening to the tape of an interview with a D-Day, I was annoyed by a radio playing in an adjacent room. Then I realized the veteran's wife was listening to a basketball game, and that it was a Knicks …
April 3, 1945 was a tragic day in the history of the 712th Tank Battalion. A Company had just occupied the village of Heimboldshausen, Germany, and established its command post in the basement of a house facing a small railroad siding. Several rail cars were parked at the siding, on the other side o…
93-POUND GIRL IS HEROINE OF FIRE
Jersey City, N.J., Dec. 30, 1937 -- (AP) -- Two score men stood by today ready to give blood transfusions to a 93-pound blond heroine of the Plaza hotel fire who stuck to her switchboard yesterday arousing guests as she beat out her blazing clothing with her hand…