It’s the evening of August 17th, 1950, near the city of Pusan, in South Korea.
Lieutenant Granville George “GG” Sweet of the 1st Platoon, Company A of the 1st Marine Tank Battalion
takes a moment to rest by the steel giants under his command .
Around him is nothing but misery.
UN Forces have been pushed back from the moment they became involved,
going from just south of Seoul to cornered against the sea in Pusan in just a month.
One of the biggest and most demoralizing problems has been surrounding armor.
The North Koreans are equipped with Soviet T34-85s.
With its 85mm cannon, it’s easily capable of piercing the American Chaffees and Shermans,
while only the Sherman can fight it effectively in return.
And to make matters worse, they vastly outnumber the Shermans, meaning the most of the time soldiers had to fight them with Chaffees,
bazookas, or no anti-tank weapons at all, giving the T34-85s a fearsome reputation.
But today Sweet has a reason for optimism, for under him
isn’t a Chaffee or a Sherman, but it’s a late WW2 M26 Pershing.
His four tank platoon has been fighting in the defense of Pusan and they’ve performed brilliantly,
but he is still to meet the tank that has been dominating the battlefield in the last month.
Lt. Sweet’s crews busy themselves hauling ammunition into their tanks,
as the sky turns orange with the sunset, when suddenly an urgent message arrives through the radio.
“Flash Purple! Flash Purple!” Those are codewords for one thing: incoming enemy armor.
Sweet springs into action, ordering his crew to prepare for combat.
The men of the supply depot rush to finish the resupply job,
dumping jerry cans into the Pershing’s fuel tanks as fast as they can and spilling gasoline in their haste.
“Full!”
“We’re ready, get moving!”
One after the other the four Pershing’s 18-liter V8s come to life with a deafening roar,
rolling out to their first tank on tank duel.
On the battlefield the men of the 1st Marine Provisional Brigade scramble to counter the enemy advance, taking positions on the barren hills,
lining the narrow dirt road through which four T-34-85s trundle onward, followed by lines of infantry.
The Marines open fire on the North Korean soldiers who take cover in the hills,
the T-34s fire back continuing to advance as small arms fire bounces off their armor.
Marine bazooka teams hurry to meet the charging armor.
They open fire and strike the lead tank right on its external fuel tanks,
bursting them open and lighting a massive fireball across the engine deck.
But the tank is unharmed within and its crew keeps pushing, uncaring of the flames engulfing the rear of their machine.
Meanwhile, further along the road Lt. Sweet is making his way towards the scene.
They’re close, they can hear the gunshots and Sweet is in constant updates of the evolving situation.
But then they stumble upon a pair of abandoned supply trucks right in the center of the road, blocking the path.
The commander of the second tank in line, Technical Sergeant Cecil Fullerton, looks down at his gunner and orders him:
“Keep your eyes ahead, if something rounds the bend, shoot it.”
He then climbs off his tank and hurries over to the abandoned vehicles,
driving them off the road to open a space for the tanks to proceed.
The tank convoy immediately gets back going again.
Fullerton gets back in his tank and Sweet radios him .
Sweet’s tank has a problem with the elevation of the gun, so he orders Fullerton to take the lead, he’ll take the rear.
Fullerton’s tank drives ahead as ordered, as the sounds of battle become more and more intense.
Through the radio Sweet is told: “Four tanks heading your way, we can’t stop them.”
Thinking quickly, Sweet orders the platoon to stop and his three fully operational tanks
to form a wall across the road and aim straight ahead, the enemy are coming.
Fullerton takes his position, heartbeat racing.
The other pair of Pershings are maneuvering to take their spots beside him
when suddenly a fireball of a T-34 rounds the corner before Fullerton’s eyes.
He gasps and shouts: “Enemy ahead! Fire!”
The Pershing’s 90mm cannon opens fire with thunderous fury.
The shell streaks across the air and strikes the enemy straight on the turret,
piercing right through and exiting out of the rear, continuing its path until it impacts into the hill behind.
Inside the Pershing the crew waits for the cloud of dirt picked up by the Pershing’s cannon to clear away.
Slowly, it reveals the enemy, T-34 seemingly untouched and still rolling forward.
Fullerton shouts: “Another!”, just as the loader slams a second High Velocity Armor Piercing shell into the breach.
The gunner pulls the trigger a second time and the shell slams into the T-34’s upper plate,
once again cutting straight through the enemy and firing out the rear of the turret.
It too impacts the hill behind, making the Marines
taking cover on the other side believe that they’re under fire.
The smoke clears and Fullerton is shocked to see the T-34 still rolling forward.
Thinking they had missed he exclaims: “Another! Hit it for god’s sake!”
The Pershing fires for a third time, impacting the enemy on their left-hand side.
They hit the ammunition and fire immediately pours out of the three points of impact.
The soviet-made machine finally comes to a grinding halt.
“It’s a hit! We got him!”
Simultaneously, the second Pershing in line maneuvers its way next to Fullerton’s tank just in time for the next T-34-85
to appear from behind the wreck of his comrade.
The words “FIRE!” echo within the American machines and both Pershings open fire in unison.
Two armor piercing shells slam into the enemy armor.
One impacts the T-34’s turret cheek causing it to violently spin around and the disoriented North Korean gunner fires into the side of the hill.
The two American tanks reload and another volley of shells strikes the enemy,
piercing their armor and causing the T-34 to burst into flames.
But despite the inferno, the Americans watch incredulous
as its turret continues to slowly turn towards them.
“Load HE! Keep firing!
The 90mm weapons continue to shoot round after round,
slamming the enemy with four more high explosive shells stopping the enemy for good.
But then a radio transmission comes from the Pershings behind
“Fullerton,look out, you’re on fire!”.
Without him realizing, the gasoline spilled
during the refueling had been set alight by an ember from his tank’s own cannon.
The flame rises above the engine deck and confusion spreads among the crew,
but any thought of bailing out is suddenly squashed by a deafening clang reverberating through the Pershing’s hull.
Fullerton looks through the scope and spots a third T-34-85 firing from behind the smoldering wreckages of his comrades.
With the flames behind them pushed to the back of his mind, Fullerton orders:
“Enemy ahead! Fire! Fire!”
A second shot from the enemy ricochets off the Pershing’s armor
before the might of the two 90mm main guns is unleashed once more.
The ground quakes as they release their fury and the T-34-85 is struck down by their shells.
Three men immediately jump out of the enemy tank and flee into the darkening landscape
just in time before another deadly volley pierces through their abandoned war machine.
The two Pershings continue to lay their fire upon the T-34s,
trying to make them burn while Marines watch in amazement from the other side.
The fire that's burning upon the American tanks is repeatedly blown out by their muzzle blast
only to be re-ignited by the following shot, making a very confusing sight for the onlooking Marines.
Behind the three wrecks, the fourth T-34-85 changes his mind and turns around to flee the scene,
but a bazooka squad from the gathered Marines have other plans.
They peek over the hill and open fire at its weak side armor, neutralizing it in a single strike.
Finally the order comes for the fire to cease and the battlefield falls silent.
Before them lay three burning T-34-85s at the cost of no casualties for the Pershings.
Lt. Sweet can’t help but feel relief, the myth of the T-34’s-85s invincibility had been spectacularly shattered.
Lieutenant Granville George Sweet would survive the war and return home, and he passed away peacefully in 2010.
Technical Sergeant Cecil Roy Fullerton would be awarded the Bronze Star for his actions.
He’s still alive today and we hope, he likes this film.
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