Germans Couldn’t Stop This “Unkillable” Commander — How He Destroyed 18 Tanks and Became Top Ace

 

At 7:23 on the morning of June 7th, 1944, Major Sydney Radley Walters crouched inside the turret of his Sherman tank Caribou, watching a German Panzer 4 emerged from the hedge 200 yd ahead. 24 years old, one day in combat, zero tank kills, the Panzer’s 88 mm gun swivel toward his position. Bradley Walters had trained on tanks for less than 2 years.

 Before 1942, he had never even seen one. The Sherbrook Fuselia regiment had landed on Juno Beach 18 hours earlier. 11 Shermans made it off the beach. By dawn, three were burning wrecks. The Germans weren’t retreating. They were counterattacking with armor the Allies hadn’t expected in these numbers.

 Bradley Walters commanded a squadron, eight tanks, 75 mm guns that couldn’t penetrate a Tiger’s frontal armor at any range. The math was brutal. A Tiger could kill a Sherman from 2,000 yard. A Sherman needed to get within 500 yd and hit the sides or rear. Most didn’t get that close. The Panzer 4 was smaller than a Tiger, but it was still faster than Caribou, better armored, and the crew inside had been fighting since Poland. Radley Walters had graduated from Bishop’s University 4 years earlier.

 His regiment had been infantry until January 1942. Then the Canadian Army told them they were switching to armor. Not one man in the unit knew what a tank looked like. They learned by reading manuals, practicing on whatever equipment arrived from England, hoping it would be enough when they crossed the channel. It wasn’t enough.

 The first week in Normandy proved that. The Sherbrook fuselier supported the third Canadian infantry division as they pushed inland from the beaches. German Panzer divisions counterattacked repeatedly. Panthers, Tigers, even the older Panzer 4s could engage Shermans from ranges where the 75mm gun was useless. Allied tankers called it getting brewed up. The Sherman’s gasoline engine caught fire easily. Crews had seconds to bail out.

By midJune, Bradley Walters knew the pattern. German tanks spotted them first, fired first. The only way a Sherman survived was speed, terrain, and getting to the enemy’s flank before he turned his gun. If you want to see how Bradley Walters became the top Allied tank ace despite these impossible odds, please hit that like button. It helps us share these forgotten stories with more people. And please subscribe.

 Back to Radley Walters. The Panzer Forest turret stopped moving. Bradley Walters knew what came next. Either Caribou’s crew killed this tank in the next 10 seconds or they became another statistic. His gunner waited for the order. The German commander was probably doing the same thing. calculating range, elevation, whether to fire high explosive or armorpiercing. Bradley Walters gave the command to fire. The 75mm gun roared.

The Panzer 4 shuttered. Black smoke poured from its engine deck. No crew emerged. That was his first kill. It wouldn’t be his last, but he didn’t know yet that he’d survived three tanks destroyed under him. two wounds, 18 confirmed tank kills, or that 45 years later, he’d learned he might have killed Germany’s most famous tank ace.

 He just knew he was still alive, and the war was far from over. The Normandy campaign turned into a grinding battle of attrition. The Sherbrook fuseliers fought through the hedro south of Khan for 56 days without relief. Bradley Walters destroyed his second tank on June 10th, a panther that had pinned down an infantry company.

 His third came 4 days later during the push toward Carpet airfield. Other squadron commanders weren’t as fortunate. By late June, the regiment had lost 23 Shermans. 11 loaders had died. Most never saw what killed them. German tanks used the hedros like fortresses. They’d wait in defilated positions where only their turrets showed. Fire, reverse, relocate.

By the time Allied tankers spotted the muzzle flash, the round was already traveling at 3,000 ft per second. The Tiger 1 weighed 70 tons. Its frontal armor measured 120 mm thick. The Sherman’s 75mm armor-piercing round could penetrate 79 mm at point blank range. Against the Tiger’s front plate, the math was simple. The round bounced off every time.

 Allied intelligence had underestimated how many Panthers and Tigers the Germans would field. Pre-invasion estimates suggested the Tiger would be rare, a heavy breakthrough tank produced in limited numbers. Instead, entire battalions of Tigers were arriving in Normandy.

 The 12th SS Panzer Division Hitler Youth had received dozens of them, all crewed by fanatical volunteers who’d been training since 1942. Bradley Walters learned to fight them anyway. The tactics were brutal but effective. Use terrain. Never silhouette on a ridge. Move fast. One platoon draws fire while another flanks. Hit the sides or rear where the armor was 60 to 80 mm.

 thick enough to stop rifle rounds, thin enough for a 75mm shell at close range. By early July, he destroyed six German tanks. The regiment promoted him to major and gave him permanent command of a squadron. He was 24 years old. Most of his crews were 19 or 20. They called him Rad. He made them sleep whenever possible, even in the afternoon, even when they laughed at him. A month later, they understood why.

Exhaustion killed more crews than enemy fire. The Sherman had advantages the German tanks lacked. It was reliable. Mechanical breakdowns were rare. When they happened, field mechanics could fix them in hours. Panthers and Tigers spent half their service life deadlined for maintenance.

 Parts shortages, transmission failures, overengineered systems that broke under battlefield conditions. The Sherman was also faster. Top speed of 30 mph on roads, 20 across country. A Panther could barely manage 15 on rough terrain. Speed meant Radley Walters could choose when to engage, disengage when outgunned, flank when the enemy was focused elsewhere.

 But speed and reliability meant nothing if the enemy saw you first. German optics were superior. Their gunners trained for years. Allied crews trained for months. The Germans also had another advantage, experience. Most had fought in Russia. They knew how to kill tanks. They’d been doing it since 1941.

 On July 8th, during the assault on Cain, Radley Walters led a squadron against German positions near Biron. Artillery had pulverized the village for 3 hours. Infantry reported light resistance. Then the Panthers appeared. Four of them hull down behind rubble. Bradley Walters lost two Shermans in the first 30 seconds. His own tank took a round through the turret side.

 The shell missed his head by 8 in. Killed his loader instantly. The crew bailed out. Smoke grenades. Run. Find cover. Hope the machine guns don’t catch you. He watched Caribou burn. His first tank. 11 kills. Gone. By nightfall, the regiment gave him another Sherman. He named it Caribou 2. Within a week, he’d added two more German tanks to his count. But something was changing in Normandy.

 Allied intelligence reported a new German unit arriving, heavy SS Panzer Battalion 101, all Tigers, led by Germany’s highest scoring tank ace, a man with 143 confirmed kills. His name was Michael Wittman. Michael Wittmann had become a legend in Germany. On June 13th, 1944, he destroyed more than two dozen British tanks and transport vehicles at Villa Bukhage in 15 minutes.

 His Tiger had ambushed the Seventh Armored Division’s lead elements, destroyed everything in sight, then withdrew before Allied artillery could respond. German propaganda turned him into a national hero, the Black Baron, the Invincible Tank Commander. By early August, Whitman commanded the third company of heavy SS Panzer Battalion 101.

 His Tiger bore the number 07. He’d survived three years of combat. Poland, France, the Eastern Front, Normandy. Most German tank aces were dead by their second year. Whitman kept accumulating kills. 143 confirmed, dozens more unconfirmed. Bradley Walters never heard Whitman’s name. Allied intelligence didn’t brief tank crews about specific German commanders.

 They briefed them about tank types, capabilities, weak points, whether the 75 mm gun could penetrate at various ranges. The answer was usually no. But Bradley Walters kept destroying German armor. Anyway, by late July, his count reached 11, then 13. He learned the Tiger’s vulnerabilities. The air intake louvers on the rear deck, the turret ring where the armor was thinner, the lower hole sides at close range.

 Every German tank had weaknesses. You just had to survive long enough to exploit them. The Sherbrook fuseliers received two Sherman Fireflies in mid July. These were standard Shermans modified with British 17 pounder guns, 76.2 2 mm bore, 5 ft longer than the American 75, high velocity armor-piercing rounds that could penetrate a Tiger’s frontal armor at reasonable combat ranges. Finally, the Allies had something that could kill German heavy tanks from the front.

Bradley Walters kept the Fireflies at the rear of his formations. They looked different. The barrel was obviously longer. German gunners learned to target fireflies first. Kill the one tank in each troop that could hurt you. Then mop up the regular Shermans at leisure.

 So the Fireflies stayed back, hidden, used terrain, only revealed themselves when absolutely necessary. A squadron’s kill count climbed. Bradley Walters destroyed a Panther near Tie La Compan, another Tiger south of Ka. His gunners were getting better. Faster target acquisition, better range estimation. The crews that survived the first month in Normandy became dangerous. They knew the ground. They knew the tactics.

 They knew how to stay alive. On August 7th, Allied Command launched Operation Totalize. The objective was breaking through German lines south of Khan, reaching FAZ, cutting off the German 7th Army before it could retreat east. The operation would involve four Canadian and British armored divisions, hundreds of tanks, thousands of infantry, heavy bomber support. The Germans knew the attack was coming.

 They’d been preparing defensive positions for weeks, minefields, anti-tank guns, hold down positions for their panzers, and heavy SS Panzer Battalion 101 was moving into position. Seven Tigers, multiple Panzer Fours, self-propelled guns, all under the command of Stand Dartan Furer Curt Meyer. Michael Whitman volunteered to lead the counterattack. The Sherbrook fuseliers received their orders on August 7th.

 A squadron would support Second Canadian Infantry Division, advance at dawn, secure the high ground near St. Agnon Demneil, hold it against counterattacks. Intelligence estimated moderate resistance, maybe some Panzer fours, possibly a Panther or two. Intelligence was wrong.

 The Germans were sending Tigers and one of them belonged to the highest scoring tank ace in the Vermacht. Bradley Walters didn’t know any of this. He just knew that by dawn on August 8th, his squadron would be in position behind a chatau’s stone walls near a village called Gmanil. Eight Shermans, two of them fireflies, waiting for whatever the Germans sent. He had no idea he was about to face a legend.

 At 0600 on August 8th, 1944, Radley Walters positioned his eight Shermans in the courtyard of Chateau Gmenil. His crews had knocked firing holes through the stone walls during the night. The chateau sat alongside Route National 158, open fields to the east. the village of St. Anon de Cranil to the north. Perfect fields of fire.

 Terrible escape routes if things went wrong. Operation Totalize began at midnight with heavy bomber raids. Allied artillery pounded German positions for 6 hours. By dawn, Canadian and British infantry had secured the high ground. The first phase was succeeding. German resistance seemed lighter than expected. Then the radios crackled. German armor moving north from Sintho. Multiple contacts, heavy tanks.

 The 12th SS Panzer Division was counterattacking exactly where intelligence said they wouldn’t. Bradley Walters watched the road through his commander’s periscope. Dust clouds rising in the distance. The distinctive sound of German engines, deep, powerful, nothing like the high-pitched wine of American power plants. These were tigers.

 He could hear them before he saw them. At 12:30, seven tigers emerged from the hedge near Sintho. They advanced in two columns. One group moving through the center of the open ground, the others hugging the treeine to the right. Slower, more cautious. Supporting infantry followed in halftracks. Panzer fours and self-propelled guns brought up the rear.

 The Tigers were 1500 yd away, still out of effective range for the 75mm guns, but well within range of their 88 mm cannons. Radley Walters ordered his squadron to hold fire. Wait, let them close. The fireflies needed clear shots. Everyone else needed to get lucky. On his left flank, British tanks from First Northamptonshire Yomenry were positioned in orchards northeast of his position.

They’d arrived during the night, dug in among the trees. Another squadron waiting for the same Tigers. The Germans were advancing into a crossfire. They just didn’t know it yet. The lead Tiger fired. The round screamed past the chateau and detonated somewhere behind a squadron’s position. The German gunner was ranging.

 Testing, seeing where the Allied tanks were hiding. The second shot came closer. Fragments of stone exploded from the chateau’s wall. The Germans had spotted the firing holes. Bradley Walters kept waiting. 1,200 yd, 1100. The math was brutal, but simple. Every second the tigers rolled forward improved his odds. Every second they stayed alive decreased his.

 The lead tiger was hauled down now using the terrain. Only its turret visible. The commander knew what he was doing. 1,000 yd. Bradley Walter saw the British tanks opening fire from the orchards. Flashes in the treeine. Rounds impacting. One Tiger slewed sideways. Track damage. Another kept advancing.

 The German formation was starting to spread out, reacting to threats from multiple directions. Still dangerous, still closing. At 800 yd, the Tigers began engaging targets more aggressively. A Sherman from the British squadron exploded. Another took a round through the engine deck. Black smoke, crew bailing out. The Germans were finding their range. Their optics were better. Their guns were bigger.

 Their armor was thicker. Bradley Walters watched the rightmost column. Five Tigers moving slower than the others. The lead tank bore the number 07 painted on its turret. It was advancing past the chateau now. 500 yd. Close enough. He ordered a squadron to open fire. Eight Shermans fired simultaneously. The stone walls erupted with muzzle flashes. Smoke. Noise. Chaos.

 The lead tiger on the right took a hit and stopped moving. An SPG behind the Tigers exploded. A Panzer 4 slewed off the road. The German formation was reacting, turning to face this new threat, trying to identify targets through the smoke and dust. But Tiger 07 kept rolling forward, its turret traversing, looking for whoever had just fired.

 Inside that tank was Michael Wittman. 143 kills, Germany’s greatest tank ace, and he had no idea a 24year-old Canadian major was watching him through a periscope 400 yd away. At 12:32, one of Bradley Walters Firefly crews fired. The 17 pounder round crossed 400 yd in less than a second. It punched through the left air intake of Tiger07 directly behind the turret.

 The tank shuddered, stopped rolling. Black smoke poured from the engine deck. No crew emerged. The Tiger sat motionless on Route National 158. Bradley Walters shifted his focus to the other targets. An SPG was trying to reverse behind the stalled Tiger. He ordered another volley.

 The SPG exploded, ammunition cooking off in a chain of detonations that sent the turret 20 ft into the air. The British tanks in the orchards were hammering the Tigers from the northeast. The crossfire was working. German tanks were burning across 500 yardds of open ground. The rearmost tiger in the column took multiple hits and stopped moving. Another tried to maneuver behind a hedge row. A firefly from the British squadron caught it broadside. Penetration.

Catastrophic kill. 3 minutes into the engagement, Tiger07 exploded. Not a normal fire. A massive detonation that hurled the turret completely off the hull. The blast wave shook the chateau walls. Ammunition storage had ignited. Fuel tanks ruptured.

 The entire vehicle disintegrated in a fireball that sent debris raining across the road. Bradley Walters kept his gunners firing. A Panzer 4 was trying to escape south. Two Shermans tracked it. Hits on the rear deck. Engine fire. crew bailing out. Another Tiger was retreating towards Sinto. Damaged track, moving slowly. The British caught it with multiple rounds.

It ground to a halt and began burning. By 1240, the German counterattack had collapsed. Seven Tigers had advanced north. Five were destroyed or disabled. The survivors were retreating. Panzer 4s abandoned on the road. SPGs burning. Infantry scattered across the fields.

 The 12th SS Panzer Division’s thrust had been shattered in 10 minutes of coordinated fire. A squadron had lost no tanks. Two crew members wounded from fragments. One Sherman damaged by a near miss, but every vehicle was still operational. The Fireflies had performed exactly as designed. High velocity armor-piercing rounds against heavy German armor at medium range. It worked.

Bradley Walters radioed his afteraction report to regimental headquarters. Five enemy tanks destroyed, multiple SPGs and support vehicles, German counterattack repelled. He didn’t mention Tiger 07 specifically. It was just another wreck on a road full of burning German equipment.

 He had no idea whose tank he just destroyed. No idea that inside the shattered hull of 07 were the remains of SS Halstrom Furer Michael Wittman, Germany’s highest scoring tank ace. 143 confirmed kills. Dead at age 30. The Black Baron had been killed by a Canadian squadron he never knew was there. Wittman’s body wouldn’t be found until 1983.

 Road construction crews discovered the remains. Forensic analysis confirmed his identity. By then, British tankers from Northamptonshire had claimed credit for killing him. Their gunner, Joe Eekans, had destroyed three Tigers that day. Everyone assumed one was Whitman’s, but battlefield analysis told a different story. The British were positioned over 1,000 yd away.

 The Canadians were at 500 yd or less. The angle of penetration on Tiger07 matched the Canadian position, not the British. The fatal shot came from Chateau Gomez Neil from one of Radley Walters’s Fireflies. He wouldn’t learn any of this for 45 years. In 1989, French civilians from the area approached him during a memorial visit, asked if he remembered August 8th, told him he’d killed Whitman.

 Bradley Walters had never heard the name, didn’t know German tank aces, didn’t care. His job was destroying German armor, not learning their commander biographies. By mid August 1944, his kill count had reached 14. The Filet’s gap was closing. German forces were trapped, trying to escape east. The Sherbrook fuseliers pursued them through collapsing defensive lines.

 More panthers destroyed, more Tigers abandoned. The Vermacht was bleeding armor it couldn’t replace. Bradley Walters had survived 3 months in Normandy, but the war wasn’t over, and his luck was about to run out again. On August 21st, Bradley Walter’s second Sherman took a Panther round through the turret during the fighting near Trong.

 The shell penetrated the right side, killed his gunner. Wounded Radley Walters in the face and hands. Fragments sliced open his scalp. 36 stitches later, field medics cleared him to return to duty. He was back in a tank within 2 days. Caribou 3. His crew stopped naming the Shermans after the first two burned. Bad luck. Bradley Walters didn’t care about names.

 He cared about crew survival, armor protection, ammunition storage. The wet storage modification was finally arriving. Ammunition racks surrounded by water jackets. It reduced the chances of catastrophic fire after penetration, not eliminated, reduced. The fillet’s gap closed on August 21st.

 50,000 German soldiers surrendered. Thousands more died trying to escape. The roads were choked with destroyed vehicles, dead horses, abandoned equipment. Allied fighter bombers had turned the retreat into a massacre. Typhoons with rockets, P47 Thunderbolts with bombs. German armor couldn’t move during daylight without being destroyed from above.

Radley Walters added three more kills during the file’s fighting. A Panther caught in the open. Two Panzer fours trying to cover the retreat. 16 confirmed, the highest count in the Canadian Armored Corps. The regiment promoted him to Lieutenant Colonel in the field.

 At 24, he was one of the youngest commanders in the Canadian Army. By September, the Allies were pushing into Belgium and Holland. The Sherbrook fuseliers advanced through liberated villages where civilians threw flowers at the tanks, offered wine, bread, anything they had. The reception lasted 3 days. Then the Germans counterattacked near the Shelt estuary. More Tigers, more panthers.

 The Vermacht was pulling units from the Eastern Front. Veteran crews, battleh hardened, fighting defensive actions where they knew the ground, where they could use terrain and ambush tactics. The easy victories of August were over. Bradley Walter’s third Sherman was destroyed in October near the Leopold Canal, not by a tank, by a mine.

 His scout car hit a teller mine during reconnaissance. The blast knocked him unconscious, threw him 15 ft, killed the driver, wounded two others. When he woke up in a field hospital, his ears were bleeding, concussion, possible skull fracture. The doctors wanted to evacuate him to England. He refused.

 Returned to the regiment after a week, took command of Caribou 4. The crews had started calling every tank caribou regardless of what the quartermaster painted on the hull. If Rad was in it, it was Caribou. Simple as that. By November, his kill count reached 17. A Tiger near Nimagan caught from behind during a German withdrawal. The crew bailed out before the ammunition exploded. Smart.

 Most German tankers were learning that survival mattered more than heroism. The war was lost. Everyone knew it. Fighting to the death accomplished nothing. Winter came early in 1944. Snow, freezing rain, mud that stopped tanks better than any mine. The advance slowed. German resistance stiffened. They were defending their homeland now. Every kilometer cost more Allied lives.

 On December 16th, the Germans launched their final major offensive in the west, the Ardens. The Battle of the Bulge. 50 divisions attacking through fog and snow, catching American forces by surprise, destroying hundreds of vehicles, creating chaos across a 100mile front. The Sherbrook fuseliers were in Holland, too far north to reach the Ardens quickly.

 But German attacks were spreading, probing, testing, looking for weaknesses. A Panther company hit Canadian positions near Gross beak on December 20th. Bradley Walters engaged at 700 yd. His gunner fired three rounds, two hits. The Panther slew sideways, turret jammed, crew evacuating, his 18th confirmed kill, the highest count of any Western Allied tank commander, a record he’d hold for the rest of the war.

 But he still had five months of fighting ahead and Germany wasn’t surrendering yet. By January 1945, the Sherbuk fuseliers were advancing into Germany itself. The Ryan River crossings, the industrial cities of the rur, villages that looked nothing like France or Belgium. No cheering civilians, no flowers, just silence, fear. White flags hanging from windows.

 German resistance was collapsing. Not everywhere, not all at once. But the pattern was clear. Fewer counterattacks, more surreners, tank crews abandoning their Panthers and Tigers because there was no fuel, no ammunition, no spare parts. The Vermacht was dying from logistical starvation. Bradley Walters didn’t add to his kill count after December.

 Not because the fighting stopped, because German armor stopped appearing. The tanks he encountered were already disabled, abandoned, pushed off roads to clear traffic. The Luftwaffa was gone. Allied aircraft owned the skies. German armor couldn’t move during daylight without being destroyed from above before any ground engagement began. The Sherbrook fuseliers crossed the Rine in March, advanced through the Ruer Pocket in April, encountered thousands of German soldiers walking west to surrender to the Americans or Canadians, anything to avoid the Soviets approaching from the

east. Most were teenagers or men over 40. The veterans were dead or in Soviet prison camps or scattered across a continent. On May 7th, 1945, Germany surrendered unconditionally. The war in Europe was over. Bradley Walters was 25 years old.

 A lieutenant colonel commanding a regiment, 18 confirmed tank kills, dozens of other armored vehicles destroyed, three Shermans lost under his command, two wounds, one concussion. He’d survived 56 continuous days of combat in Normandy, nine months of additional fighting across France, Belgium, Holland, and Germany. The Sherbrook fuseliers became part of the Allied occupation force in Germany, garrison duty, policing displaced persons, preventing revenge killings.

 Bradley Walter spent July 1945 learning how to be a peaceime officer, training replacements who never seen combat, processing paperwork, missing the adrenaline and terror and clarity of war. The Canadian government awarded him the distinguished service order and military cross recognizing his leadership and gallantry as a squadron commander.

 The citations mentioned specific actions. The assault on K in July, the Filelet’s gap in August. Multiple engagements where his tactical decisions saved lives, protected infantry, accomplished objectives against superior German armor. He returned to Canada in 1946, married Patricia. They had four sons. Bradley Walters called them the tank crew.

 He stayed in the army, rose through the ranks, served in peacekeeping missions in Cyprus and Egypt, became commanding officer of the eighth Canadian Hosars in 1957, attended the NATO Defense College in Paris, promoted to colonel, then brigadier general, retired in 1974 after 34 years of service.

 The French government made him an officer of the Legion of Honor. Canada appointed him commander of military merit. In 2004, the town of Biron in Normandy renamed a small park in his honor. Park Radley Walters, a commemorative plaque, benches, shade trees, a memorial to the man who’d helped liberate them 60 years earlier.

 He died on April 21st, 2015, age 95. Buried in St. Paul’s Anglican Church Cemetery in Perse, Quebec, near where he was born. The Globe and Mail called him the most respected battlefield commander in the Royal Canadian Armored Corps. Military historian Terry Cop said he emerged from Normandy as the best known tank ace in Canadian history.

 But most people outside military circles never heard his name, never learned about the infantry officer who’d never seen a tank before 1942, who destroyed 18 German tanks, who survived impossible odds, who helped defeat the Vermacht one engagement at a time. His story nearly disappeared into silence like so many others from that war. But not quite, not yet. Sydney Bradley Walter story remained largely unknown outside Canada for decades.

 No Hollywood movies, no best-selling books, just regimental histories and military archives. The occasional mention in academic studies about tank warfare, a footnote in histories of the Normandy campaign. The controversy about Michael Whitman’s death kept his name alive in certain circles. Military historians debated the evidence.

 British veterans insisted Joe Eekans made the kill. Canadian veterans remembered the engagement differently. Battlefield analysis favored the Canadian position. Shorter range, better angle, forensic evidence from Tiger 07’s hull. But Bradley Walters never claimed Whitman, never promoted the controversy. When journalists asked him about it in his later years, he gave the same answer every time. He destroyed German tanks.

That was his job. Whose tank? What commander? It didn’t matter. The war was about survival, about protecting his crews, about accomplishing the mission. That attitude defined his entire career. He wasn’t fighting for glory, for records, for recognition. He was fighting because young men were dying in Shermans that couldn’t match German armor.

 Because infantry needed tank support, because the job had to be done regardless of the odds. His crews remembered him differently than the official citation suggested. They remembered a commander who made them sleep. Who prioritized crew survival over aggressive tactics, who understood that exhausted tankers made fatal mistakes, who knew that getting his people home mattered more than adding to his kill count.

 The World of Tanks video game created a medal in his honor, the Bradley Walters Medal, awarded for destroying eight or nine enemy vehicles in a single battle. Millions of players earned it. Most never knew the man behind the name.

 never knew he’d been an infantry officer who learned tanks by reading manuals, who survived three tanks destroyed under him. Who became the top Western Allied tank ace despite never having seen armor before 1942. If this story moved you the way it moved us, do me a favor, hit that like button. Every single like tells YouTube to show this story to more people. Hit subscribe and turn on notifications. We’re rescuing forgotten stories from dusty archives every single day.

 Stories about tankers who beat impossible odds with tactics and courage. Real people, real heroism. Drop a comment right now and tell us where you’re watching from. Are you watching from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia? Our community stretches across the entire world. You’re not just a viewer. You’re part of keeping these memories alive. Tell us your location.

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