This latest volume in Anthony Tucker-Jones's series of photographic
histories of armored warfare records in graphic detail the role played
by tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and self-propelled artillery during
the decisive campaign in northwest Europe in 1944-5. In a sequence of
over 200 archive photographs he shows how American, British, Canadian,
and Polish armored divisions spearheaded the assault on the Third Reich,
and how the Wehrmacht mounted a desperate armored defense.
Tanks were required to operate in the dust of Normandy, the mud and
waters of the Scheldt and Rhine rivers and the snows of the Ardennes and
the forests of Germany. A succession of crucial armored engagements was
fought - during the D-Day landings, Operation Goodwood and the struggle
for the Bourguébus ridge, the Falaise pocket, the Seine crossing,
Arnhem, the German attack in the Ardennes, the Rhine crossing, in the
Reichswald and during the rearguard actions and the last-ditch tank
battles fought by the panzers in the Ruhr before the German surrender.
Anthony Tucker-Jones's photographic survey of the ultimate tank battles
of the Second World War illustrates the range of armored fighting
vehicles that were developed during the conflict, and it features the
specialized vehicles deployed in Europe for the first time such as the
Buffalo, DUKW, Weasel and Terrapin.