This episode of the History Guy
is brought to you by Drive a Tank. Stay tuned to the end of the
episode for a special message. The Allied landings on the beaches of
Normandy in June of 1944 were a seminal event. The images of soldiers storming the beaches, and
the stories of the desperate fighting occupied the western press then, and well, even up to today.
But the landings were just the beginning of a grueling campaign to retake France and assault
Germany itself. And in the summer of 1944, the US Third Armored Division was in the Front for
much of that fighting, and for much of that time in the very front was Staff Sergeant Lafayette
Pool and the crew of the M4 medium tank “In The Mood.” It is history
that deserves to be remembered. The US Third Armored Division was activated
April 15th 1941 at Camp Beauregard Louisiana. 600 officers and 3,000 enlisted men of
General George Patton's Second Armored Division were transferred to create the core
of the new division. Third Armored Division veterans Frank Woolner and Murray Fowler
said of Camp Beauregard in their 1945 book, Spearhead in the West 1941-1945 The Third Armored
Division, “It was hot and dusty, well populated by insects and subject to a quickly changing climate
of sunshine and showers. Truly Beauregard was the original of that spot where a man could walk
in the mud, and have dust blowing in his eyes.” Driving where on a perfectly dry day, vehicles
were known to sink hub deep in the spongy soil of unit motor parks, the Third began training
with just 20 M2 Mae West light tanks. So named because the twin turrets, one containing a 50
caliber and the other a 30 caliber machine gun, reminded tankers of the famous assets of actress
Mae West. The public relations officer coined the nickname for the division, The Bayou Blitz.
In June, as nearby Camp Polk was completed, the Division moved. Woolner and Fowler dryly
stated, “The light tanks proceeded to the new area under their own power, a miraculous achievement.”
Organized as a heavy armored division, The Third Armored commanded two armored regiments containing
a total of four medium tank battalions and two light tank battalions. With attached units
including three armored infantry battalions when fully constituted, the Third Armored
included some sixteen thousand men. In mid-June the first selectees, meaning men newly
drafted under the Selective Service System, began to arrive, among them was 21 year old Lafayette
Green Pool of Odom Texas. He had tried to sign up for the Navy with his twin brother in 1937, but
was refused due to an eye injury he received as a child. Pool was a successful amateur boxer, had
been studying engineering at Texas College of Arts and Industries at Kingsville Texas but when the
Army instituted a draft he chose to enlist on June 14th. In a 1944 edition of Yank magazine, Corporal
Wilbert Richards described him. “He was a tall skinny guy with a benched nozzle, he got that in
the Golden Gloves.” Assigned to the newly formed Third Armored Division, Pool would have shared the
experience of other selectees. Woolner and Fowler wrote, “The procedure on selective reception
was standard. They were met at the train, usually with a band, relieved of their luggage,
given a hot meal and a bath and assigned to bunks. Basic training, 13 weeks of it, was the order of
the day. New recruits to the Armored Force found that hitting a target was no miracle and that road
marches became easier with practice. There was plenty of the latter.” At the time selectees were
only required 18 months service when the nation was not at war, and Woolner and Fowler noted, “The
song was I'll Be Back In A Year, Little Darling, " And "Ohio" was a watch word that
meant, "Over The Hill In October.” But the Japanese attack on
Pearl Harbor in December of 1941 meant that these selectees would
not, in fact, be home in a year. Pool was initially assigned to the 40th Armored
Regiment although that regiment was dissolved in 1942 and he moved to the 32nd. When the division
planned to send a group of boxers to a Golden Gloves competition in Chicago Yank magazine wrote,
“There was the beginnings of a legend about Pool even then. He'd won the sectional 165 Pound
Crown at New Orleans Louisiana that year, but turned down an offer to go into Chicago and enter
the National Final Golden Gloves tournament. The reason, Pool was a tanker first and a boxer
second. His outfit had just been allotted a few of the latest medium tanks.” These tanks the M3
Medium represented quite an improvement over the light and almost comically ill-designed Mae
West M2s. Woolner and Fowler said of them, “It was unthinkable to these men that Germany,
running up a whirlwind campaign in France in the low countries, actually possessed more
advanced machines for the waging of total war. They would come to find out that
that assessment was incorrect. " Before reaching the European battlefields, the men
of the Third would be equipped with more capable M4 Shermans.” “Still," Woolner and Fowler noted,
"The later Sherman and Pershing tanks were a vast improvement of her earlier models, but aside from
greater maneuverability and mechanical endurance, never approached the excellent armor and
ordnance of the German Panther and Tiger tanks.” In July of 1942, the Division was sent to
the desert training center in California. All the vehicles were taken by train because,
Woolner and Fowler noted, “Rubber was too precious to waste in the undertaking.” There Pool, by
then a sergeant, gained a reputation as an aggressive and exacting tank commander. Offered an
opportunity to attend officer training he refused, preferring to remain a non-commissioned
officer so as to remain closer to the Front, and the action. His response was quoted in
the 2020 edition of Warfare History Network “I just want to have one of the
best tank crews in the Division.” The desert was so hot that the men's lips
chapped painfully and they took to wearing crimson lipstick as a cure. But Woolner and Fowler
argued that “Desert maneuvers of 1942 probably did more to toughen the Third and prepare it for
ultimate combat than had all previous training.” Still the Division and its many elements underwent
more training and served in more posts before shipping out to the United Kingdom starting in
September 1943. Shortly before shipping out Pool was promoted to Staff Sergeant. According
to the Texas State Historical Association, Pool boarded a train bound for New York
harbor on September 4th and departed the next day aboard the liner Cape Town Castle
which arrived in Liverpool on September 15th. He was bulleted at Codford in Wilshire and the
unit continued to train on the Salisbury Plain. The Division arrived on the beaches of Normandy
just a few weeks after D-Day in mid-June 1944. Pool’s tank, an M4 medium tank mounted with a 75
millimeter main gun, was assigned to Company I of the 32nd Tank Regiment. Pool had named the tank
“In the Mood”, the name of a popular Glenn Miller song at the time. According to the Texas State
Historical Association, when asked why he replied, “That's the way I felt then.
Just in the mood for anything.” Part of Combat Command “A” he was one of
the first medium tanks of the Third Armored Division to enter combat near the French
Hamlet of Villiers Fossard on June 29th. The village was well defended and the job of
Combat Command “A” difficult, but the website of the Third Armored Division veterans writes, “Pool
seemed to be a natural to mechanized warfare. In his very first engagement his tank, "In The Mood",
was responsible for the destruction of over 70 German soldiers and three armored vehicles.
He quickly became known as the Texas Tanker.” Of course armored combat is a team sport. The crew
of "In The Mood" included Driver Corporal Wilbert “Red” Richards whom Yank magazine described as
“A pint-sized G.I. from Cumberland Maryland.” Only five foot four inches tall, Pool referred
to him as “Baby” but according to the Warfare History Network Pool considered him to be one
of the best tank drivers in Europe and bragged that he “Could parallel park that big sherman
in downtown New York, in rush hour traffic.” Assistant driver and bow machine gunner PFC Bert
Close of Portland Oregon was called “Schoolboy” since he was just 17 years old. Gunner Corporal
Willis Oller of Morrisville Illinois was known as “Groundhog” because of the stains on his face
from constantly wearing tanker's goggles. While loader Dell Boggs of Lancaster Ohio was called
“Jailbird” since," Warfare History Network notes, “He was given the choice of the army
or prison after a manslaughter charge.” Pool's nickname by his own account was “War Daddy” But their success in the Battle of
Villiers-Fossard was cut short as the “In the Mood” was disabled by a Panzerfaust,
an infantry anti-tank weapon. It was one of 31 tanks of the Third Armored Division
that was lost in the difficult fighting, although despite the losses, they did manage
to liberate the town. Still the crew of “In the Mood” was uninjured and just two
days later were back in another tank. Unlike the first tank, “In the Mood II” mounted
the high velocity 76 millimeter gun. While it had a personnel round it was not as effective as the
75. The 76 packed a stronger punch against German armor. Pool although a non-commissioned officer
filled the role of a platoon commander and was notorious for taking the lead. Richard was
quoted in Yank magazine “The guys used to draw straws to see who'd lead the spearhead.
Pool would have none of that and he'd just say I'm leading this time in his old Texas drawl,
stand there grinning while we cussed him out. By God I think we're more scared of Pool than
of Jerry.” Richards also told the reporter, “All Pool wanted was to get out ahead of the
other tanks so he could kill more Jerries, and that he did.” “In action, as in the ring, Pool
punched hard and accurately.” Yank wrote, “It was great stuff for Pool he was proving to himself,
and to the world, that the American soldier is more than a match for Hitler's supermen. As the
Third Armored Division took the lead some argued that they're the first to break out of the Bocage
country, although some dispute that. A reporter from the Chicago Tribune gave them a new nickname,
“The Spearhead Division.” Wooler and Fowler wrote, “The officers and GI’s who didn't look like
heroes, but who were heroes all the same, they were lean and tired, hard as spring steel.
Red eyed from the swirling dust, their faces lined and stumbled with whiskers. No time to clean up,
no time to do anything but fight and go forward. The men of the spearhead had a job
to do and they did that job well.” But if the Third Armored
Division was the spearhead, Lafayette Pool and the crew of “In the Mood”
with the tip of that spear. Yank magazine noted that “Pool thought that he could beat
the Wehrmacht, gun to gun and man for man.” If the German armor was superior
Pool and the crew of “In the Mood” didn't acknowledge that. Outside the village
of Colombier, a German Panther rolled directly in front of the tank, the startled German
gunner fired twice but missed both times. Oller's aim was true. Where History Network
writes, “A single round penetrating the turret and detonating ammunition inside. The Panthers
turret blew completely off in a burst of flame and smoke.” But the fight wasn't over. The website of
the Association of Third Armored veterans writes, “As it turned out they had driven into a veritable
armored hornets nest. Remnants of the Second Panzer Division were reconnoitering into the area.
Firing began at once and the enemy seemed to come from everywhere. Colonel Richardson, Commander of
the 32nd Regiment could hear the orders and the swearing from the crews as they frankly
tried to adjust to the unforeseen encounters. By dark it was all over, Pool and “In the Mood”
had taken out two enemy tanks, and at least two armored cars. Dismounted German crews were fed
lead for a late supper by Machine Gunner Close.” Richard said of Pool, “He used to sit up there
in the turret. You could just tell Pool anywhere by the way he sat up there, more out than in.” He
rode that tank like a Texas Bronco. He used to sit up there and give us orders through the intercom
phone just as cool and calm as though the big show were a maneuver.” Yank writes
that “Richard recalled a night when the Spearhead had driven deep into
German lines from Fromental in France. It had become quite dark when the order finally
came to halt.” Pool opened his mouth to say, “Driver halt!”, but found himself looking at a
big jerry dual purpose AA gun in the gloom ahead. He said, “Gunner fire!” and Oller, with
his eye perpetually pressed into the site squarely hulled the enemy weapon before its crew
could recognize the American tank. “In the Mood II” lasted until August 17th when an Allied
P-38 aircraft mistook the tank for German armor. Knocked out by friendly fire, the crew again
was unharmed and christened “In the Mood III” They continued racking up kills. Warfare
History notes that “Outside Namur in Belgium, Pool and his men destroyed 16 enemy
vehicles in one day including half tracks, assault guns and several self-propelled anti-tank
guns.” Yank magazine writes that “Outside the town of Dison near Liege after finding and
destroying six armored infantry vehicles, Pool discovered that the head of his column
had been fired upon by a German Panther tank. Hurriedly he gave orders to his driver to regain
the column. Upon arriving at the scene of action he immediately observed the enemy tank,
gave a single estimate of range to Oller. The gunner fired one armor-piercing projectile
at fifteen hundred yards to destroy the Panther. “From the day of the great breakthrough
in Normandy,” Yank had pined, “They had smashed the Wehrmacht before them.
Burned its vehicles, decimated its troops. These men seemed impervious to German shells.
21 times they had led the irresistible drive of the American armor and remained unscathed
in this most hazardous task of total war.” The next target was the Siegfried line in Germany itself. By that time the Association of
Third Armored Division Veterans notes, “Pool had been awarded the Distinguished
Service Cross, the Legion of Merit and the French Croix de Guerre with Gold Star, and
had been twice nominated for the Medal of Honor. It was there on September 19th against the German
defenses that "In the Mood III's" luck ran out. Yank writes that “Watchers, including his colonel
who also rode in a tank, saw the bright lance shaft of a German tracer hit the turret of "In the
Mood.” Struck by the anti-tank gun, Pool ordered the tank to reverse, yelling, “Back up Baby!” into
the intercom! But a second hit threw Pool from the turret and trying to back away, "In the Mood" fell
over an embankment and rolled over. Pool's leg was shattered by a fragment of the shell. Richards
later told a Yank reporter, “I think Pool would have gone back himself if the medics hadn't held
him down. There ain't a Jerry shell in the world that could kill old Pool or any of his crew. The
best those square heads could do is to wound him in the leg. He'll be back, and then God help the
Panzers.” Richard's assessment was optimistic. Pool's leg was too damaged to save; it had
to be amputated. For him the war was over. In a period of just 81 days Pool and his crew
accounted for 12 confirmed enemy tank kills, 258 other armored vehicles and self-propelled
guns, and killed more than a thousand German soldiers and captured 250. Pool’s tank led
his task force in at least 21 major attacks, the Texas Tanker and his crew came
to be called the "US Tank Ace of Aces." Poole returned to the United States where he was
fitted with a prosthetic leg; he was discharged in 1946. But in 1948 he was allowed to reenlist
and served as a mechanic with the Transportation Corps and later as an instructor, again with the
Third Armored Division. He served until 1969 and retired as a Chief Warrant Officer 2. He attended
San Angelo college and eventually became a Junior High School teacher. One of his sons, Jerry Lynn
Pool served as an officer with US Special Forces; he was killed in Vietnam. Lafayette Pool was
the inspiration for Brad Pitt's character in the 2014 war film Fury. As an homage
that character was also nicknamed War Daddy. America's Tank Ace of
Aces passed away on May 30th 1991 in Killeen Texas at the age of 71. He is
buried in Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery. Special thanks to Drive a Tank in Kasota
Minnesota who let me drive their M4A3 HVSS and many more armored vehicles. Grab five
or twenty of your best friends, pop off to Kasoda have the time of your lives. More
information at driveatank.com I hope you enjoyed this episode of the
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