“Private National Simmons is the assistant driver of an M-4 Tank.”
Original caption: “Private National Simmons is the assistant driver of an M-4 Tank.” Private Simmons didn’t serve in just any tank battalion; he served in the 761st Tank Battalion, also known as the “Black Panthers”.
The 761st Tank Battalion was one of the three Black American tank battalions during the Second World War.
The 761st Tank Battalion was activated on April 1, 1942, at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana and trained with light M5 Stuart Tanks and the M4 Sherman tanks.
After completing their training, the battalion was used as school troops at Camp Hood, where they were used as adversaries for the white tank destroyer battalions in training. In October 1944 the battalion arrived in France.
In November 1944 it entered combat in Belgium. The battalion continued to fight and fought furthermore in the Netherlands, Germany, France, and Luxembourg, until it found itself in Austria at the end of the war in May 1945.
The men of the 761st Tank Battalion engaged in the struggle for racial equality, a struggle in which they would engage for the rest of their lives. Only after the war, in 1978, the unit would be awarded the Presidential Unit Citation.
In 2005 a monument was unveiled at Fort Hood, honoring the 761st Tank Battalion. During World War II, the 761st Tank Battalion was an important part of the U.S. Army; its members fought with distinction and bravery.
Unfortunately, Private Nathaniel Simmons didn’t live to see the awards of the battalion. He died in combat less than 24 hours after this photograph was taken. His tank suffered a near-hit from a German shell and the entire crew perished.
The concussion might have caused internal injuries to the tank crew members or loosened a pipe that caused carbon monoxide poisoning inside the tank.
(Source of the image: Combined Arms Research Library)
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