Inside the Chieftain's Hatch: M5A1, Part 1.

This is the tank that my Dad drove during WWII for the Seventh Armored Division, 347th Reconnaissance Troop F. He was reluctant to speak about his service, except once at a reunion with his war buddies. They had gotten to drinking, (strange how often that activity kept coming up), and they asked him why he grabbed the cannon breech. This sounded promising, so I listened. It turns out that once, on patrol, they came across a larger German tank which proceeded to knock out one of their tracks. ASs they were now a "sitting duck", they bailed out, grabbing the machine guns, while my Dad, the last out, had grabbed the breech. His reasoning was, he didn't want the Germans to use their own gun on them as they ran back to base. He claimed to have thrown it away after a short while. It didn't occur to any of them that the German's had their own weapons and didn't need their puny "pop" gun. Anyway, that's the only story that he told about his service. One of his buddies did tell me about the time they helped liberate a concentration camp, and as being Jewish and fluent in Yiddish, was able to provide translation services between the prisoners and the American doctors. And that's all I know about his three years of service.

My favorite quote? "Light tanks are very efficient manglers of gun barrels."

I gasped when I realized you were at Rock Island, native territory of the Gun Jesus. I gasped a second time when I thought you were going to skip track tensioning.

I’ve gained an additional level of respect for the men who fought in tanks since watching the Chieftains inside/ outside videos and visiting Bovington.

My dad was the gunner/loader on the Stuart tank through WWII also landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day, went through the major battles and wound up in St. Vinth during the Battle of the Bulge. My son who adored my dad has this tank tatto along his inner forearm with my dad's nickname of Lucky under the tank.

When your so dedicated to watching the chieftain and you find a way watch the private ones

I am half expecting Gun Jesus to appear.

Some point in the future.... Chieftain : Oh bugger , the M22 is on fire! (stands up and walks out)

Ahh the chieftain, come for the tanks stay for the man

The Hydramatic automatic transmission (as well as their v-8) was developed by the Cadillac division of General Motors in the 1930s, but was first offered on an Oldsmobile since they had done all the testing at their test track. Thus by 1940 America had a functional automatic transmission ready to go. When offered on cars after the war, GM touted the fact that it had been "war tested" and "refined in battle". Of course thousands of returning servicemen attested to it's reliability, and ease of use. Thus American drivers accepted automatic transmissions long before the rest of the world.

I wonder how long its gonna take for chieftain to run into gun jesus

To the best of my knowledge this was the only U.S. tank to ever have it's "own" comic book (published by DC) which ran until sometime in the 1960s. The story "Rabbit Punch For A Tiger" is perhaps the best known/remembered in the series.

My dad is 91 years old. He was 16 in 1945. When he was 18 a friend and him purchased a brand new Army surplus Cadillac V8 tank engine and installed it in a '32 Ford coupe. That was 1948 and the large Cadillac engine was very powerful compared with the original 221 Ford V8 with a whopping 65 horsepower. He told me it was the fastest car in his little town for quite a while.

Glad you did a video on the M5 Stuart. IMO it's one of the best light tanks of the war. Wrecks havoc on infantry, has enough armor to actually do decent job at protecting it against it against the IJA, a good enough gun for a light tank, and a good speed.

I love how you give a class of instruction as a true tanker with experience on what is practical and what's not as a former infantryman I can relate Sir.

I love how cavalier the military is with field instructions, such as track tensioning.

Thanks for pointing out shipping. The Sherman was a medium tank that had to be shipped from the East or gulf coast of the US. The build up for DDay had to be made with the most advanced tank you had 18-24 months before the planned landing. If you wait to design, manufacture,and ship tanks from the US you will always be behind your enemy a continent away!

100% better without the background music

This is awesome. I just recently bought some rifles from RIA and when I saw that their September Premier auction had an M5A1 and an M41 in it, I was really hoping someone would take a look at them.

“And it’s up for sale.” God I love America.