On August 31, 1944, near the town of Archingny, France, I was the loader in a Sherman tank called 'Wolverine.' We had been pushing through France for three weeks straight without resupply — eating K-rations, sleeping in the mud, smelling like diesel and gunpowder. On that day, we crossed a small bridge and found ourselves facing four German Panthers that had been abandoned — out of fuel. The crews had stripped them and walked east. Our driver, a kid from Detroit named Tommy Kowalski, got out and examined the Panthers. He found a German soldier's lunch pail in one of them — still had actual bre...