Corporal Solly Rothstein, their Jewish gunner, had wanted to call her something biblical, as if the Sherman was a wrathful instrument of God. Something like Zealot, after the 1st century Jewish sect that sought to incite the people of Judaea to rebel against the Roman Empire. He quickly squashed that one. Rothstein, slightly built, but always vocal about the injustices the Germans heaped on his people. Grant considered he was more than entitled to his opinion. After all, he was a Jew, and Jews had plenty of reason to hate Krauts.

  Solly had wavy, dark hair, with huge, deep and soulful eyes, and the olive skin of his Hebrew ancestors. He'd told them the Nazis gave his folks in Germany a bad time, after they prevented them from leaving the country. He hadn't heard from them in years and he always worried they'd been murdered.

  He was terrified, but not of fighting the Germans. On the contrary, he wanted to kill every German soldier he came across. No, his real fear was something else, capture and imprisonment in a concentration camp. If what some people were saying was true, it was tantamount to a sentence of death, which may have been the fate of his relatives. After the war, he planned to locate his family. If he found them alive, and if he could save the cash, he'd take them all to Palestine and establish a farm, what he called a kibbutz.

  Rumors about the Germans rounding up Jews and killing them in the concentration camps were rife, but most thought it an exaggeration. Which was fine, if you weren't a Jew. The Germans were ordinary, civilized folk, people said. Hell, many of them had immigrated to the US, and they weren't monsters. Sure, they'd imprisoned Jews and stolen their possessions. They'd have to pay for those crimes one day, but mass murder? From a nation who'd produced some of the great names of science, literature, medicine and the arts, many of them Jews. Impossible!

  Although if it were true, I'd let Solly name the tank anything he wanted. And we'd all help him go after the perpetrators. Even so, I only hope to Christ that's all it is, a rumor. The alternative doesn't bear thinking about. It can't be true. Zealot? No way.

  In the end, he’d pulled rank and named her Minnie Mouse after the cartoon character. When they asked him why, he told them no matter what happened, Minnie always made it home. Besides, they needed a female around. After that, no one argued. The crew held him in some awe. He was the smooth faced, slim, tall and good-looking college-boy lawyer, who'd elected to enlist in the ranks, one of the men, almost, but not quite. They nearly forgave him his college degree, but his Germanic blonde hair and blue eyes made him the butt of more than a few jokes.

  Minnie was a Sherman M4 medium tank, with three inches of armor up front, and equipped with a 75mm main gun mounted in the turret. Some said the gun was about as useful as a peashooter if they came up against German heavy armor. In the unlucky event of meeting a Tiger tank, conventional wisdom suggested a rapid retreat, although the military was careful to call it a 'withdrawal.'

  They also said it would be best to reverse out of trouble, to keep their heavier frontal armor between them and the German. Grant asked the officer who'd lectured them on tactics whether the Sherman's frontal armor would be enough to stop a shell from the Tiger's 88mm main gun. He didn't get an answer.

  Then again, Minnie Mouse was home. Comforting, familiar, something they could always rely on to get them home. On the LCT, they'd sheltered in the lee instinctively, putting the bodywork of the thirty-ton behemoth they called home between them and the icy sheets of water from the English Channel that constantly sprayed over them. Minnie's iron hull was also the last barrier between them and the French coastline, the long line of defenses that contained the dreaded German coastal batteries.

  The gun barrels of the tanks all pointed at the French coast. They'd been ordered to aim their main guns toward the Krauts, so they could supplement the barrage from the warships when they got within range. If they got within range, before the big Krupp-made coastal defense guns blew them out of the water.

  He looked to the east at the reassuring sight of the USS Arkansas a short distance away. Its twelve batteries of twelve-inch guns faced forward, ready to pound the Kraut shore defenses to scrap. To the west, the USS Texas was even closer, its formidable fourteen-inch guns bristling from the superstructure like trees in a forest. The brass said they'd turn the Jerry guns into so much scrap metal, so when they went ashore, there'd be little or no opposition. No one really believed them.

  Nearer, he could see other LCTs, and the larger LSTs, Landing Ship Tanks, some of them carrying the swimming tanks, the Sherman DDs. The DD stood for duplex drive. The vehicles were equipped with a propeller to drive them through the water and a folding rubberized canvas screen to keep them dry. He shuddered at the thought of those flimsy canvas structures bolted to the steel hull, turning the tank into an amphib. Like most of the men in his platoon, he thanked the good Lord he hadn't been assigned to one of those armored deathtraps.

  He checked his wristwatch. The time was 05.02. The air bombardment was about to start, and as if some God of War had read his mind, the sudden roar of aircraft engines made them all look up at the troubled sky. An air armada, warplanes, hundreds of them, thousands, they came in wave after wave. Lumbering, heavy bombers, Brit Lancasters and American B-17s, medium bombers like the Mitchell B-25 in service with the RAF, the roundels painted on their wings.

  There were sleek fighter escorts darting in and out of the heavies, P-47s, Spitfires, and Hurricanes, and a couple of squadrons of ground attack planes like the Typhoons. The sky was so full of aircraft it didn't look like there was room for any more. For a brief moment, he felt a sneaking sympathy for the enemy soldiers who would soon endure the nightmare of those bombs. Then he recalled that every Kraut who survived the bombardment would soon be shooting at them, and he grinned at his stupid innocence.

  Pound the fuckers into dust!

  He watched the aircraft thunder toward the gloomy, dark clouds of the Normandy coastline, and then they heard the bombs begin to fall. The sky lit up with flame and smoke, and the distant 'crump' of exploding ordnance became a continuous rolling thunder.

  "Hey Josh, you reckon they can survive that lot?" Dale Weathers asked him, offering him his pack of Luckies. Dale was black, a native of the wrong end of Boston. Broad and well muscled, he'd been an amateur boxer back home, a lightweight. It was a sport he took up when other kids picked on him at school because of his small stature. He kicked ass big time, after spending all his spare time at the gym, sparring and pumping iron. His duties as loader meant he had to heft heavy shells inside the cramped interior of the Sherman, so his developed muscles found a new use. If Dale had one regret, it was that he'd missed out on a college education. He wasn't all brawn; he also had the intellect to take him a long way. Sadly, he didn't have the financial resources to go anywhere, except into manual work to support his family.

  Josh Grant had fought a bitter fight to get Dale on his crew. The military was not kind to blacks and saw them as lesser mortals. Of the seventeen hundred black troops heading toward the beaches with the First Army, most were posted to service companies. A few were even assigned to the 320th Anti-Aircraft Balloon Battalion. Dale was a driver when he first met him, ferrying stores to the fighting units. They would provide the essential logistical support to keep the Allied Armies fighting. They would become famous as the 'Red Ball Express'. Except Dale wanted more.

  Josh ran into Dale when he was unloading shells from his truck, just prior to D-Day. His loader, Eugene Wilson, had gone down with dysentery, or so they said. The crew thought he'd caught a dose of the clap, VD. He had a reputation for spending his pay and spare time on tarts, and he wasn't too fussy about hygiene. On the day when he was searching out a replacement loader, he saw this tough-looking, muscled black man tossing wooden crates of shells around like they were cardboard cartons. He was looking at Minnie with a wistful expression. When he saw Grant, he asked what it was like, to be part of the crew of a Sherman.

  "We haven't seen action yet, but my boys plan to give Jerry a hammering as soon as we get to France," he replied, patting the steel hull of Minnie Mouse.

  "I'd like to fight," Dale said.

  "So why don't you?"

  He grimaced. "Ask the officers. They think black men are only fit for fetching and carrying, digging latrines, that kind of work."

  He nodded. It was a running sore in the military, the argument about the treatment of black servicemen. Personally, he couldn't see why there was a problem. Blacks had fought in the Civil War, hadn't they? What was so different this time around? A soldier was a soldier. A man was a man. Who gave a shit about his skin color?

  "My Sherman doesn't carry an officer. How about you ask for a transfer to my crew, I need a man like you. A tough man, a man who wants to fight."

  He smiled. "They wouldn't go for it, not in a million years."

  "We'll see about that. Wait there."

  He sought out Major Morgan, who in civilian life was a college professor with views that were very liberal.

  "You want what? A black man in your crew?"

  "I do, Sir. I need you to arrange his transfer from a transport battalion. He's a damn good man. I could use someone like that."

  "I don't know..."

  He looked around, as if struggling to find a way to say no. Grant piled on the pressure.

  "Unless you're a racist, like most of the brass, Major."

  That earned him a sharp look, but he'd said exactly the right thing.

  "I'm no racist, Sergeant. Tell him he's hired. I'll clear it with his unit. Send him to me, and I'll forward the paperwork to battalion. I suggest you keep him out of sight until it's all finalized. Colonel Lindbergh may see things differently, if you know what I mean."

  "I know Colonel Lindbergh, Sir."

  Lindbergh, the solid gold asshole, who was also their Battalion commander!

  He looked embarrassed. "Yeah, I guess you do. Good luck, Sergeant. Maybe this could work out," he nodded to himself, "Yes, maybe it could be the start of something big. It's time the Army made some changes."

  The following day Dale joined the crew. In another world, he'd have made good material for a college degree. He was intelligent and well read, but only by dint of his own efforts. He could have gone all the way, summa cum laude, you name it, and then a career as the doctor his impoverished father had wanted him to be. But it wasn't another world, the family was broke, and he'd worked as a trucker before the army called on him. Grant soon found he and Dale spoke the same language. After the war, his new loader's plan was to save enough money to put him through law college.

  ‘I want to be a lawyer like you, Josh. Sharp suits, Cadillacs, crocodile briefcase.’

  Grant told him he was still paying off his loans and hardly earning enough money to pay the rent. "It ain't all gravy, my friend. Too many lawyers and not enough clients."

  Dale didn't listen. He had a dream, and no man would take it off him. So here he was, freezing his butt on a soaking wet LCT, tossing around on the English Channel. He took the cigarette Dale offered him, cupping his hands to keep the flame alive out of the wind while he thought about the answer to Dale's question.

  "You want the truth, can the Krauts survive the bombardment?"

  Dale grinned. "Sure. I may as well know the worst."

  Grant was aware of the men standing nearby, waiting for his reply.

  "Okay, here it is. I reckon plenty of Krauts are likely to survive the aerial bombardment. But." He paused for effect. "The battleships haven't started shooting yet. They're due to open up any moment now. Between the ships and the aircraft bombing and shooting up the defenses, they'll give them a shitload of grief. With any luck, all we'll have left is to mop up the survivors."

  Dale didn't look convinced, but he tried a weak smile. "I hope you're right."

  He smiled. "Me too."

  "And if you're wrong?" Vernon asked him, in his Southern twang.

  Corporal Vernon Franklin, their co-driver, waited on his reply, a redneck farm boy from Mississippi, with the prejudices and chips on his shoulder that came with the territory; including a plan to buy a small farm in the Delta, with the requisite Dodge truck and pack of slavering coonhounds. He mentioned something about raising crocodiles, or maybe it was alligators.

  The rest of them craned around, their faces tense.

  "What if you're wrong?" Vern asked again.

  Grant winced.

  I'm just a lawyer, yet they look to me as if I have all the answers. I don't. All I can do is try to keep them alive.

  He tried a joke. "If I'm wrong, Vern, then you'll just have to drive a damn sight quicker."

  The tension eased a little, and some of them attempted a chuckle, but it was forced. Vernon gave a satisfied nod. Now they knew it was up to him, Vernon Franklin, co-driver, to pull them out of the shit. It was enough to satisfy his stubborn pride, his warped Southern notion of bravery and honor. Which is why Grant had been careful to suggest their survival may rest on the skills of Vern. It was untrue.

  What was true was they depended more on Solly Rothstein. He was a damn good gunner, the best in the 745th Battalion. If there were a chance of firing first and scoring the first hit when they met the enemy, it was bound to be Solly. He constantly brought home the highest scores in the battalion. The battalion commander, Lindbergh, even wanted him for his Sherman, and it was only with difficulty Grant kept him in Minnie Mouse.

  The problem he had to wrestle with was Vernon hated Rothstein. Solly was a kike. A yid. No match for a good 'ole Southern boy. It was a constant battle to keep them apart.

  As if the Germans aren't enough to contend with.

  At 05.30, the batteries on board the warships opened fire, and the cold, stormy morning erupted with the thunder of more explosions, this time not from the skies but from the sea. The sky was lit up with guns firing from ships of every shape and size, warships of every type and class. Battleships, cruisers, destroyers, even motor torpedo boats fired off their deck guns. Merchant vessels, transports, LCTs, LSTs, and a host of smaller craft could only marvel and watch the immense barrage.

  The noise was astonishing, as salvo after salvo thundered out from the big guns. Seconds after they fired, the massive shells struck the shore defenses, which then erupted into flame and smoke, showering the ground around them with debris. Out to sea, the landing craft plodded slowly on toward the distant beach. It was as if the men were detached from what was going on a short distance away, that they were no part of the hurricane of fire and destruction, not yet.

  Grant felt like a forgotten witness in the explosive-torn hell of the morning, an unnecessary appendage amid the thunder of the shells and the crump, crump, of bombs dropped from yet more aircraft that continued to pound the Germans. Rockets surged from the wings of Hawker Typhoons, aimed at targets that were out of sight, and yet more rockets soared away, this time from the top of an LCT a couple of hundred yards away. A few of the LCTs carried rocket batteries, in a further effort to provide defense suppression.

  He felt insignificant, a tiny cog, an infinitesimal part of the largest seaborne invasion in the history of man. In command of a puny Sherman M4, he was no more than an infinitesimal footnote on this historic day. Always assuming they reached the beach alive. He knew the chances of that weren't good once the big German batteries opened fire. He omitted to mention that to his crew. Let them enjoy the show while it lasted.

  "They're launching the DDs."

  He turned at Dale's shout and looked across at an LST with its bow doors open, and the ungainly canvas shrouded amphibious Shermans lumbered into the water.

  "Oh, Christ," someone screamed, "Oh shit, the poor bastards."

  A combination of the ship's wake and an abnormal wave had swamped the canvas tube of a DD, and it sunk immediately. There was no sign of survivors.

  "They're too far out," Dale shouted over the noise, his expression horrified, "We're more than a mile off the beach. Those poor bastards will never make it."

  They could only watch helplessly as men died. Drowned, for no good reason. Defeated not by the enemy, but by nature, by wind and wave. Another DD went down when an LCT rammed the fragile canvas and tore it to shreds, plunging the tank to the bottom of the sea. Abruptly, another LST carrying DDs raised the front ramp and altered course. The vessel picked up speed, heading straight for the beach.

  At least that skipper has seen the danger and plans to take them all the way, Kraut guns or no. He should be running this show.

  Grant grinned at Dale, trying to offer encouragement. The loader was standing next to him and they'd both lit more cigarettes, both men sucking feverishly at the tobacco as they watched the carnage. Grant's hand shook as he again raised his cigarette to his lips, but he ignored it.

  "We'll be there soon, my friend, are you ready to make history?"

  PFC Dale Weathers shook his head. "Nope, and I never will be. But I guess someone has to do it. Hey, you reckon we're gonna meet any Tigers?"

  He stared back at him. "I honestly don't know, Dale. But if we do, I intend to beat the crap out of them. And don't mention Tigers to Vern, you know what he's like."

  "Yeah, they scare the shit out of him."

  They scare the shit out of me too. Truth is the Tigers outmatch us, but what else am I supposed to tell them? That if we tangle with one of those monsters, we're as good as dead? Better to let them spend what time they have left in blissful ignorance.

  "They're just tanks, machines," he said. "Relax, we can beat them any day."

  The black man gave him a skeptical glance. "Yeah, right."

  Major Grenville Morgan's voice came over the ship's speaker system. He was the commander of A Company.

  "Now hear this. We will hit the beach in six minutes. Colonel Lindbergh, the battalion commander, has ordered us to start engines and be ready to advance the moment the ramp is down. Give 'em hell, boys, and remember to move off that the beach as soon as your tracks touch the sand. I repeat, clear the beach ASAP. No exceptions."

  Grant looked aft to the rear of the boat. Lindbergh was there, standing on the hull of his tank, doing his best to present the image of some gung-ho hero. Unlike Major Morgan, their battalion commander, Colonel Martin Lindbergh III inspired them with little confidence. He was a distant relative of Charles Lindberg, the aviation pioneer, and rarely failed to advise anyone of that snippet.