Скачать или смотреть They Mocked His “Reverse” Loading Trick — Until His Sherman Destroyed 4 Panzers in Just 6 Minutes

Why one Sherman tank loader turned his back to a 75mm cannon during WW2 — and destroyed 4 Panzers in 6 minutes.
This World War 2 story explores how a single, unconventional decision ended up saving countless American tank crews by breaking every traditional safety rule ever taught.
On September 19, 1944, Private First Class Walter Kowalski, serving as a replacement loader in the Fourth Armored Division, was positioned inside his M4 Sherman near Arracourt, France as three German Panzer IV tanks advanced from 800 yards. With a painfully dislocated shoulder, the standard loading method became impossible for him. Forced to improvise, he did something no instructor would ever approve of—he turned his back to the breech and loaded each 75mm shell behind himself, fully aware that such a move violated every established safety protocol.
Training manuals warned against it. Fort Knox instructors called it unsafe, risky, and impractical.
But the battlefield proved otherwise.
What Walter figured out that morning wasn’t about defying rules just to defy them—it was about using physics, leverage, and positioning in a way no training guide had ever considered. By the end of the firefight, his Sherman crew had eliminated four Panzers. And within days, loaders across Third Army began copying his method. It kept them alive.
This improvised loading technique traveled quietly from crew to crew across tank battalions, ultimately saving an estimated 300–500 American tank crewmen before General Patton formally recognized it as part of doctrine. The principles discovered at Arracourt continued to shape loading procedures well into the Vietnam era.
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