![]() I could tell early on in my interview with him, Clarence didn’t really want to talk about war. The next day, Clarence and Gustav had lunch with descendants of the young woman’s family. He told Clarence it was an act of war and that both he and Clarence should no longer carry the guilt about her untimely death. Gustav told Clarence that he too had fired upon the car. ![]() He was surprised there by Gustav Schaefer, the gunner of the German tank that was destroyed by Clarence the day the woman was killed. Following years of nightmares and at age 89, Clarence traveled back to Cologne to ask for her forgiveness at her gravesite. He watched her die as I did in an historical Pulitzer Prize winning video taken during the battle. Inside the black car to his dismay was a young woman who was trying to escape the city. ![]() Clarence was a man who had been filled with terrible guilt for more than 40 years for gunning down a car that had come between his tank and the German Panther. The back story to what happened that afternoon in 1945 might be more fascinating than the top story. He was as unassuming as any man could be, not one you would think had destroyed the German tank in Cologne with two blasts from his turret gun. Author Adam Makos of the book, “Spearhead,” had called Clarence the “Gentle Giant,” and he was that man in my presence. If you were in a room of World War II veterans, Clarence might be the last man you would think to identify as the “Hero of Cologne,” in which he and his tank crew had a face to face standoff with a German tank on March 6, 1945. After all he had disabled six German Panther tanks with his dead-eyed turret gun shots, but I found him to be quite the contrary as the only living member of the legendary Spearhead tank division. ![]() I expected to find Clarence to be a man with a tough guy image, a John Wayne type with steel eyes and a stone face. What made my meeting with him so special was that I had the privilege of interviewing him in a room where only the two of us were present along with the late, great, award-winning Times News photographer Bob Ford. ![]() Writing stories for the Times News has given me the opportunity to interview some interesting people the past 10 years and no one has made more of an impression on me than World War II American hero Clarence Smoyer of Lehighton. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |