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The Allied landings on the beaches of Normandy in June of 1944 were a seminal event.
The images of soldiers storming the beaches, and the stories of the desperate fighting occupied the
western press then, and well, even up to today. But the landings were just the beginning of a
grueling campaign to retake France and assault Germany itself. And in the summer of 1944,
the US Third Armored Division was in the Front for much of that fighting, and for much of that time
in the very front was Staff Sergeant Lafayette Pool and the crew of the M4 medium tank
“In The Mood.” It is history that deserves to be remembered.
The US Third Armored Division was activated April 15th 1941 at Camp Beauregard Louisiana.
600 officers and 3,000 enlisted men of General George Patton's Second Armored
Division were transferred to create the core of the new division. Third Armored Division
veterans Frank Woolner and Murray Fowler said of Camp Beauregard in their 1945 book,
Spearhead in the West 1941-1945 The Third Armored Division, “It was hot and dusty, well populated by
insects and subject to a quickly changing climate of sunshine and showers. Truly Beauregard was the
original of that spot where a man could walk in the mud, and have dust blowing in his eyes.”
Driving where on a perfectly dry day, vehicles were known to sink hub deep in the spongy soil of
unit motor parks, the Third began training with just 20 M2 Mae West light tanks. So named
because the twin turrets, one containing a 50 caliber and the other a 30 caliber machine gun,
reminded tankers of the famous assets of actress Mae West. The public relations officer coined the
nickname for the division, The Bayou Blitz. In June, as nearby Camp Polk was completed,
the Division moved. Woolner and Fowler dryly stated, “The light tanks proceeded to the new area
under their own power, a miraculous achievement.” Organized as a heavy armored division, The Third
Armored commanded two armored regiments containing a total of four medium tank battalions and two
light tank battalions. With attached units including three armored infantry battalions
when fully constituted, the Third Armored included some sixteen thousand men.
In mid-June the first selectees, meaning men newly drafted under the Selective Service System, began
to arrive, among them was 21 year old Lafayette Green Pool of Odom Texas. He had tried to sign up
for the Navy with his twin brother in 1937, but was refused due to an eye injury he received as
a child. Pool was a successful amateur boxer, had been studying engineering at Texas College of Arts
and Industries at Kingsville Texas but when the Army instituted a draft he chose to enlist on June
14th. In a 1944 edition of Yank magazine, Corporal Wilbert Richards described him. “He was a tall
skinny guy with a benched nozzle, he got that in the Golden Gloves.” Assigned to the newly formed
Third Armored Division, Pool would have shared the experience of other selectees. Woolner and Fowler
wrote, “The procedure on selective reception was standard. They were met at the train,
usually with a band, relieved of their luggage, given a hot meal and a bath and assigned to bunks.
Basic training, 13 weeks of it, was the order of the day. New recruits to the Armored Force found
that hitting a target was no miracle and that road marches became easier with practice. There was
plenty of the latter.” At the time selectees were only required 18 months service when the nation
was not at war, and Woolner and Fowler noted, “The song was I'll Be Back In A Year, Little Darling, "
And "Ohio" was a watch word that meant, "Over The Hill In October.”
But the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941
meant that these selectees would not, in fact, be home in a year.
Pool was initially assigned to the 40th Armored Regiment although that regiment was dissolved in
1942 and he moved to the 32nd. When the division planned to send a group of boxers to a Golden
Gloves competition in Chicago Yank magazine wrote, “There was the beginnings of a legend about Pool
even then. He'd won the sectional 165 Pound Crown at New Orleans Louisiana that year, but
turned down an offer to go into Chicago and enter the National Final Golden Gloves tournament.
The reason, Pool was a tanker first and a boxer second. His outfit had just been allotted a few
of the latest medium tanks.” These tanks the M3 Medium represented quite an improvement over the
light and almost comically ill-designed Mae West M2s. Woolner and Fowler said of them,
“It was unthinkable to these men that Germany, running up a whirlwind campaign in France in
the low countries, actually possessed more advanced machines for the waging of total war.
They would come to find out that that assessment was incorrect. "
Before reaching the European battlefields, the men of the Third would be equipped with more capable
M4 Shermans.” “Still," Woolner and Fowler noted, "The later Sherman and Pershing tanks were a vast
improvement of her earlier models, but aside from greater maneuverability and mechanical endurance,
never approached the excellent armor and ordnance of the German Panther and Tiger tanks.”
In July of 1942, the Division was sent to the desert training center in California.
All the vehicles were taken by train because, Woolner and Fowler noted, “Rubber was too precious
to waste in the undertaking.” There Pool, by then a sergeant, gained a reputation as an
aggressive and exacting tank commander. Offered an opportunity to attend officer training he refused,
preferring to remain a non-commissioned officer so as to remain closer to the Front,
and the action. His response was quoted in the 2020 edition of Warfare History Network
“I just want to have one of the best tank crews in the Division.”
The desert was so hot that the men's lips chapped painfully and they took to wearing
crimson lipstick as a cure. But Woolner and Fowler argued that “Desert maneuvers of 1942 probably
did more to toughen the Third and prepare it for ultimate combat than had all previous training.”
Still the Division and its many elements underwent more training and served in more posts before
shipping out to the United Kingdom starting in September 1943. Shortly before shipping out Pool
was promoted to Staff Sergeant. According to the Texas State Historical Association,
Pool boarded a train bound for New York harbor on September 4th and departed the
next day aboard the liner Cape Town Castle which arrived in Liverpool on September 15th.
He was bulleted at Codford in Wilshire and the unit continued to train on the Salisbury Plain.
The Division arrived on the beaches of Normandy just a few weeks after D-Day in mid-June 1944.
Pool’s tank, an M4 medium tank mounted with a 75 millimeter main gun, was assigned to Company I of
the 32nd Tank Regiment. Pool had named the tank “In the Mood”, the name of a popular Glenn Miller
song at the time. According to the Texas State Historical Association, when asked why he replied,
“That's the way I felt then. Just in the mood for anything.”
Part of Combat Command “A” he was one of the first medium tanks of the Third Armored
Division to enter combat near the French Hamlet of Villiers Fossard on June 29th.
The village was well defended and the job of Combat Command “A” difficult, but the website of
the Third Armored Division veterans writes, “Pool seemed to be a natural to mechanized warfare. In
his very first engagement his tank, "In The Mood", was responsible for the destruction of over 70
German soldiers and three armored vehicles. He quickly became known as the Texas Tanker.”
Of course armored combat is a team sport. The crew of "In The Mood" included Driver Corporal Wilbert
“Red” Richards whom Yank magazine described as “A pint-sized G.I. from Cumberland Maryland.”
Only five foot four inches tall, Pool referred to him as “Baby” but according to the Warfare
History Network Pool considered him to be one of the best tank drivers in Europe and bragged
that he “Could parallel park that big sherman in downtown New York, in rush hour traffic.”
Assistant driver and bow machine gunner PFC Bert Close of Portland Oregon was called “Schoolboy”
since he was just 17 years old. Gunner Corporal Willis Oller of Morrisville Illinois was known
as “Groundhog” because of the stains on his face from constantly wearing tanker's goggles. While
loader Dell Boggs of Lancaster Ohio was called “Jailbird” since," Warfare History Network notes,
“He was given the choice of the army or prison after a manslaughter charge.”
Pool's nickname by his own account was “War Daddy”
But their success in the Battle of Villiers-Fossard was cut short as the
“In the Mood” was disabled by a Panzerfaust, an infantry anti-tank weapon. It was one of
31 tanks of the Third Armored Division that was lost in the difficult fighting,
although despite the losses, they did manage to liberate the town. Still the crew of “In
the Mood” was uninjured and just two days later were back in another tank.
Unlike the first tank, “In the Mood II” mounted the high velocity 76 millimeter gun. While it had
a personnel round it was not as effective as the 75. The 76 packed a stronger punch against German
armor. Pool although a non-commissioned officer filled the role of a platoon commander and was
notorious for taking the lead. Richard was quoted in Yank magazine “The guys used to
draw straws to see who'd lead the spearhead. Pool would have none of that and he'd just say
I'm leading this time in his old Texas drawl, stand there grinning while we cussed him out.
By God I think we're more scared of Pool than of Jerry.” Richards also told the reporter,
“All Pool wanted was to get out ahead of the other tanks so he could kill more Jerries,
and that he did.” “In action, as in the ring, Pool punched hard and accurately.” Yank wrote, “It was
great stuff for Pool he was proving to himself, and to the world, that the American soldier is
more than a match for Hitler's supermen. As the Third Armored Division took the lead some argued
that they're the first to break out of the Bocage country, although some dispute that. A reporter
from the Chicago Tribune gave them a new nickname, “The Spearhead Division.” Wooler and Fowler wrote,
“The officers and GI’s who didn't look like heroes, but who were heroes all the same,
they were lean and tired, hard as spring steel. Red eyed from the swirling dust, their faces lined
and stumbled with whiskers. No time to clean up, no time to do anything but fight and go forward.
The men of the spearhead had a job to do and they did that job well.”
But if the Third Armored Division was the spearhead,
Lafayette Pool and the crew of “In the Mood” with the tip of that spear. Yank magazine
noted that “Pool thought that he could beat the Wehrmacht, gun to gun and man for man.”
If the German armor was superior Pool and the crew of “In the Mood”
didn't acknowledge that. Outside the village of Colombier, a German Panther rolled directly
in front of the tank, the startled German gunner fired twice but missed both times.
Oller's aim was true. Where History Network writes, “A single round penetrating the turret
and detonating ammunition inside. The Panthers turret blew completely off in a burst of flame and
smoke.” But the fight wasn't over. The website of the Association of Third Armored veterans writes,
“As it turned out they had driven into a veritable armored hornets nest. Remnants of the Second
Panzer Division were reconnoitering into the area. Firing began at once and the enemy seemed to come
from everywhere. Colonel Richardson, Commander of the 32nd Regiment could hear the orders and the
swearing from the crews as they frankly tried to adjust to the unforeseen encounters.
By dark it was all over, Pool and “In the Mood” had taken out two enemy tanks, and at least two
armored cars. Dismounted German crews were fed lead for a late supper by Machine Gunner Close.”
Richard said of Pool, “He used to sit up there in the turret. You could just tell Pool anywhere
by the way he sat up there, more out than in.” He rode that tank like a Texas Bronco. He used to sit
up there and give us orders through the intercom phone just as cool and calm as though the big show
were a maneuver.” Yank writes that “Richard recalled a night
when the Spearhead had driven deep into German lines from Fromental in France.
It had become quite dark when the order finally came to halt.” Pool opened his mouth to say,
“Driver halt!”, but found himself looking at a big jerry dual purpose AA gun in the gloom ahead.
He said, “Gunner fire!” and Oller, with his eye perpetually pressed into the site
squarely hulled the enemy weapon before its crew could recognize the American tank. “In the Mood
II” lasted until August 17th when an Allied P-38 aircraft mistook the tank for German armor.
Knocked out by friendly fire, the crew again was unharmed and christened “In the Mood III”
They continued racking up kills. Warfare History notes that “Outside Namur in Belgium,
Pool and his men destroyed 16 enemy vehicles in one day including half tracks,
assault guns and several self-propelled anti-tank guns.” Yank magazine writes that “Outside the
town of Dison near Liege after finding and destroying six armored infantry vehicles,
Pool discovered that the head of his column had been fired upon by a German Panther tank.
Hurriedly he gave orders to his driver to regain the column. Upon arriving at the scene of action
he immediately observed the enemy tank, gave a single estimate of range to Oller.
The gunner fired one armor-piercing projectile at fifteen hundred yards to destroy the Panther.
“From the day of the great breakthrough in Normandy,” Yank had pined,
“They had smashed the Wehrmacht before them. Burned its vehicles, decimated its troops.
These men seemed impervious to German shells. 21 times they had led the irresistible drive
of the American armor and remained unscathed in this most hazardous task of total war.”
The next target was the Siegfried line in Germany
itself. By that time the Association of Third Armored Division Veterans notes,
“Pool had been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the Legion of Merit
and the French Croix de Guerre with Gold Star, and had been twice nominated for the Medal of Honor.
It was there on September 19th against the German defenses that "In the Mood III's" luck ran out.
Yank writes that “Watchers, including his colonel who also rode in a tank, saw the bright lance
shaft of a German tracer hit the turret of "In the Mood.” Struck by the anti-tank gun, Pool ordered
the tank to reverse, yelling, “Back up Baby!” into the intercom! But a second hit threw Pool from the
turret and trying to back away, "In the Mood" fell over an embankment and rolled over. Pool's leg was
shattered by a fragment of the shell. Richards later told a Yank reporter, “I think Pool would
have gone back himself if the medics hadn't held him down. There ain't a Jerry shell in the world
that could kill old Pool or any of his crew. The best those square heads could do is to wound him
in the leg. He'll be back, and then God help the Panzers.” Richard's assessment was optimistic.
Pool's leg was too damaged to save; it had to be amputated. For him the war was over.
In a period of just 81 days Pool and his crew accounted for 12 confirmed enemy tank kills,
258 other armored vehicles and self-propelled guns, and killed more than a thousand German
soldiers and captured 250. Pool’s tank led his task force in at least 21 major attacks,
the Texas Tanker and his crew came to be called the "US Tank Ace of Aces."
Poole returned to the United States where he was fitted with a prosthetic leg; he was discharged
in 1946. But in 1948 he was allowed to reenlist and served as a mechanic with the Transportation
Corps and later as an instructor, again with the Third Armored Division. He served until 1969 and
retired as a Chief Warrant Officer 2. He attended San Angelo college and eventually became a Junior
High School teacher. One of his sons, Jerry Lynn Pool served as an officer with US Special Forces;
he was killed in Vietnam. Lafayette Pool was the inspiration for Brad Pitt's character in
the 2014 war film Fury. As an homage that character was also nicknamed
War Daddy. America's Tank Ace of Aces passed away on May 30th 1991
in Killeen Texas at the age of 71. He is buried in Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery.
Special thanks to Drive a Tank in Kasota Minnesota who let me drive their M4A3
HVSS and many more armored vehicles. Grab five or twenty of your best friends, pop off to Kasoda
have the time of your lives. More information at driveatank.com
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