Скачать или смотреть They Laughed at His “Welded Plow” — Until It Turned a Sherman into a Mine Eater

Normandy, June 1944 — The Allies had stormed the beaches, but the real nightmare waited inland. The bocage — a maze of ancient hedgerows — turned every field into a fortress. Sherman tanks, built for open battle, were trapped and burned one by one.

Then a New Jersey sergeant with a welding torch changed everything.
Curtis Culin, a 26-year-old mechanic turned tanker, scavenged scrap from German beach obstacles and welded four steel prongs to the front of a Sherman. His men laughed — until the tank plowed through a hedgerow like paper. Within days, hundreds of “Rhino Tanks” were carving paths through Normandy’s deadly terrain.

But Culin didn’t stop there. When mines began crippling the advance, he designed a mine-clearing plow — a crude, welded blade that made Shermans eat explosives for breakfast.

This is the story of one man’s field invention that turned scrap metal into salvation, saved hundreds of crews, and helped open the road to Paris.