Spearhead: An American Tank Gunner, His Enemy, and a Collision of Lives in WWII

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Some of our favorite today were sitting down with Adam Nacos, author of great military history book such as a higher call devotion in his latest book and what were talking about now spearhead Adam, I'm student how you got interested in World War II and who Clarence Moyer was my grandfathers got me interestedly. It was as a kid in these take me to airshows and museums. They both fought in World War II and they didn't see combat and so for them. World War II was fascinating. They were fascinated by the heroes who had won the war. By the time they got into it so they were able to talk about it. They were able show me and my brother. Their photo albums and they lit the spark in us that we thought World War II was cool. We thought the men who fought it were the best Americans. What we did to show our appreciation. We start a little homemade newsletter and eventually became a little magazine called valor magazine and we would interview veterans. First, our grandfathers. Next, the guy next door and then guys in our city and before you know we were kids in high school and then later in college.

Publishing a magazine to honor people who were four times are age in this case a friend in college had told me about this local hero in his hometown I was living in Allentown and my buddy said, listen, there is a hero there from World War II who had fought as a tank under he was one of our most decorated gunners and he's living there in a row house in Allentown.

Nobody knows he's there, not his family. They don't know what he did in the war. His neighbors don't. I didn't know much about armored warfare, but I knew there was something special about this guy because he had supposedly fought this duel in World War II that was said to be the most famous tank duel of the war. So one day I just went knocking Clarence Moyer open the door and invited me into his kitchen table is family group in deep poverty father was away working for the CCC mother was a housekeeper and live the house so you might say dilapidated. You could hear the neighbors on the other side of it. The wall, so he grew up poor and Clarence when he would come home from high school, where as other kids would go to football practice where they would go hang out at the movie theater. Clarence came home and eat one of his classmates. Her father was in the candy business. So he went to that man and he said I'd like to sell candy and so Clarence would take a box of chocolate bars Hershey's and all those and just like a ballpark vendor. He would go door to door at night again. He's 14-year-old kid selling candy bars to try to help his family and that's where he developed that protective nature, and he also did a little bit of a self selfish nature. In one sense and that he believed that no one was can help him. No one was going to look out for him and he had to take care of his family because no one can help us. Clarence Moyer was a member of the spearhead division. Now he was a 21-year-old governor at the time.

He's a tall, lanky kid with blond hair, quiet I was. Said he was a gentle giant and I was always amazed that he was a great tank under one of the reasons he lived in a obscurity was partially because he chose that partially because he was in an obscure unit spearhead division during World War II. Very little known is called the third armored division and a lot of people confuse with Patton's third Army third armies a big unit. The war reporters are tagging along and are sending back to dispatch his patent is charging out of France. Pat is doing this patent.

Patton slapped the guy, you know, the whole unit is being tracked third armored division was a unit known for breaking through the enemy lines and then running in radio silence. Just like a submarine behind the line selling chaos and so the reporters were sending back dispatches. This unit was just creating mayhem.

It lost the most tanks of World War II of any American unit, it lost more men killed in action than the hundred and first Airborne or the 82nd airborne.

Nobody knows its name. Talk about tanks before you go anywhere else. Who are these men was. It is a volunteer mission to be inside these tanks, like it is for subs. I was all work in the early days it was, but then after a while they started putting guys in it, whether they liked it or not, especially in the late war Youngs had be forced into a tank thing is the Sherman tank is such a beautiful machine.

We always think it's invincible. But you're right.

It's like a submarine that can hide and in the early war are Sherman's were fine tank when they went into the African campaign.

The British were using them before us and they reported great results you got five men in that machine a gunner loader about gunner commander and a driver so it's it's a tightly packed unit, a band of brothers and an American tank. The trouble was, by 1944, 45 we took those same Sherman tanks have been fighting African we sent them into Normandy and there they encountered this German tank called the panther missing at a bigger gun and it had massive armor and by 1944, 45, it was almost a rule, you need seven or eight Sherman's to tackle one panther or tiger tank of the enemy.

Clarence was at first a loader in the tank and he loved it because he didn't want to hurt anybody wanted to get through World War II without taking a life never even like to hunt rabbits as a kid is you have to kill them and so he was happy to shovel the shells into the gun and let somebody else pull the trigger.

Now when the unit was training up on the English seacoast. They said no, what happens if our gunners get knocked out the loaders need to know how to shoot. So Clarence the other loaders were all put in the gunner seat. They were given a competition you have to shoot at a target thousand yards away up on the coastal bluffs and working to see who's the best loader turned gunner Clarence nailed the sing eight times and his crew received the big magnum of scotch as a reward, and they all drank that night and they said someday you are to be our gunner because like it or not you have a talent and so after the heavy losses in France when they were charging through Belgium again gunning for the German border.

Clarence put the gunner seat and this reluctant warrior suddenly given the most responsibility on the tank because if you miss, that means your enemy gets to hit you and statistically when a Sherman tank was hit one man was going to come out dead. Another was going to come out wounded. So Clarence the reason he was such a great gunner wasn't because he hated the enemy is because he loved the man inside that tank, his family, he called and he knew if he missed one of them are going to come out dead another wound, then you're listening to Adam Nacos and he's talking about the life of Clarence Moyer which is captured in his book spearhead when we come back we'll learn more about this tanker gunner and his fellow soldiers lives in the tank and so much more. On our American story books view of the great American stories we tell and love America like we do, or asking you to become a part of the All-American stories family.

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It was a harrowing job and we talk about selflessness. Every time his commander would come back from the briefing, yet a pipe in the pipe in his mouth would be bouncing up and down because his teeth were chattering so badly. Every time these guys got in these tanks to go charge forward toward the Germans they were terrified.

But guys like Clarence, they embrace that well there said the biblical verse which says who will go forth for us and then the answer is send me Clarence embodied that it was that idea that well somebody has to so send me somebody has to check the guys behind us in the column. Somebody has to go first.

Leading the way.

Being the first tank over the hill.

The first tank around the bend when leading is often times a death sentence for Clarence. His first taste responsibility was at moms Belgium.

We had broken out of France we found out there's this German army running back to Germany so the spearhead division was given orders turn on a dime. Go north and lay in ambush for them so they did may be did the German army. There got up hundred thousand or more Germans coming toward you. We parked our tanks around the various roadblocks. Clarence is tank that night was coiled up they would park five tanks in a fan and a German tank that night blundered into their position in the dark and it parked right next to them. He's in the gunner seat. He's got a German tank idling next to them in the dark and his commander young man named Paul Faircloth came up.

They were all trying to catch some shut eye. And Paul said okay we got a shoot in Clarence through this fit because he didn't want to shoot in the dark when the send me tank even though he could hear it even though he could almost touch it.

He knew if he missed he was can hit the tank on the other side of him and that tank on the other side of that German was American.

And so the German tank shuts down its engine and we have to wait till daylight now, so Clarence is in that sardine can for hours and hours and hours are ticking by and it's just as nerve-racking thing where you have the enemy take next unit probably knows you're there and it's probably waiting to shoot you to.

And then when daylight comes, he finally has a courage to pull that trigger and he kills the first tank of World War II that he would kill. But the amazing thing was he was afraid to look inside. All the guys in the tanks that we got a look inside and see did the German crew get out the night or did we just kill normal and Clarence wouldn't do it. He refused to get out. Eve refused to ever look inside the hatch and said his commander went and did a form. Paul looked inside me shut the hatch and he never told Clarence what he saw in their Clarence was so reluctant so fearful that it wouldn't be for many months that he found the courage to even own up to what his job was and let's talk about the key moments in his development as warrior talk about a few of them tell a few stories about Clarence's progression to this leader and this is fighter so Clarence is commander Paul who we were talking about the next day they're getting Sheldon. Paul is going out of his tank to help some wounded men and Paul got blasted by mortar his leg torn off and he died right in front of Clarence's eyes thrown up on a bank in Belgium so Clarence watches his friend. I the American army grinds its way into Germany through the west wall they have to blast their way through these pillboxes they first meet these Germans who refuse to surrender to the Sherman tanks had to literally go around it and shooting through the back door so he had to see that he had to battle his way through the west wall so he was in this downward spiral and then they get called into the Battle of the Bulge. That's where they really came toe to toe with a German panther tanks because Hitler threw everything had left into this battle and Clarence gets to watch as the American tanks. In many cases have to hide from the enemy because we just couldn't handle them. So there times or he's hiding in the night and German column of tanks is driving just outside just beyond him in the forest and he has to hold his fire so he goes through this crucible of of things that would break a lot of people today and coming out of the Battle of the Bulge Army realized they had to change something that change was the Persian. It was the super tank that was supposed to end the third Reich Clarence is given. One of the 20 Persian succumbed to European theater in its untested pulls it up to a hill overlooking a German Valley. The Rhineland and its flooded down there and all the houses are abandoned and half the third armored division gathers around him including his general Gen. Maurice Rose was actually the highest ranking Jewish American in the European theater general roses to start. He standing next to Clarence's tank and he's gonna watch a firing demonstration, so Clarence climbs and he's nervous as can be and he sets his sights on the chimneys of these houses thousand 2000 yards away and he blasts the easiest one in the chimney explodes and his crew started laughing because outside of the tank. Nobody had seen this purging's 90 mm gun fire before and had such a blast that came out of the sides as well as the front that it bold, general rose over into the mud and his entourage and they are getting up in their soaking wet, but they watch the chimney explode in their happy the men are cheering because these were guys who who used to say, give us a panther and will take on the enemy. They used to say. Our tanks are only good for driving around the countryside. We want tanks to fight with not look good in parades. This a unit that has been depressed. They were actually taking their Sherman tanks. They were up armoring them just like our Humvees in Iraq.

They were taking armor off of German tanks had been knocked out and welding it to the front of our Sherman statement taking sandbags and putting them on the Sherman's had been taking concrete and making concrete armor and the Sherman sets how terrified they were suddenly there watching this purging tank. The only thing that can go toe to toe with the German tank and they know there's hope in the third armored division set its sights on a city called Cologne and the significance of Cologne was that we had to get a bridge across the Rhine. We had to get into the heart of Germany and end this thing in the Rhine was like this natural barrier so the third armored division sets out fighting through the little Rhineland towns approaching Germany's third-largest city in Cologne was known as the fortress city because Hitler had ordered it defended to the last and we knew we had to conquer this block by block, and it was gonna be the biggest urban battle of the European war. This is where Clarence really stepped up because he's got the purging and he's put in the front. That was a downside to the new tank meant that you are going to lead every attack any assume that responsibility. When they lined up at the gates of the city is commander said gentlemen I give you Cologne. Let's knock the hell out of it and he comes in the clone and he's leading them block by block the armored infantry is moving up alongside of them.

The danger in Cologne was you had to watch out for not just your left, not just your right you to watch out.

Above and below because you have German soldiers on the rooftops of Molotov cocktails you had German 88 mm guns, cannons dug into the basement level enemy soldiers using the basements has tunnels so they would knock down the walls and they could move an entire block on the scene.

You also had that fear of a German soldier with a Panzer Faust which is glorified bazooka who could just step out any doorway and put that thing right through your tank and then on top of it. The biggest fear in the most uncommon thing for urban warfare German tanks. They were spotted in the city. There were several of them.

The had crossed the bridge to make a last stand and you could turn any corner. That's what Clarence worried about you can turn any quandary come to any intersection you could drive right into the crosshairs of German tank and he did and you're listening to Adam Nacos telling the story of Terrence Moyer brother to give you a context for this battle because you've heard the words Battle of the Bulge, but just to get an idea 705,000 sold.

This is just on our side only 400 tanks 1900 tank destroyers, 7700 other armored vehicles in my goodness, none of troops in Bagram. We lost 19,000 this one battle 89,500 federal the price we paid. My goodness, the price the German people paid for this staggering two.

Who shall I send, and who will go for us there. I am send me that's from Isaiah and Clarence Moore will answer that full live that verse when we come back more Adam Nacos telling the story of Clarence Moore you're here on our American story, and we continue with our American stories into the story of Clarence Moore is told by Nacos, by the way, by his fantastic books. Go to Amazon forever. You can read it you will put them or less left off. Clarence was about to be sent into battle at Cologne, Germany, and what happened in Cologne and who was Gustaf Schaefer first time he met Gustav Schaefer was through the gun site Clarence and pulled up to an intersection, a massive four-way scanning across the way and Gustav Schaefer's Panzer for tank nosed into the opposite Street in his saw Clarence's tank and it backed up really quickly so before Clarence could even put his gun on it. It backed up. Gustav was one of three German tanks sent over the morning of this battle and they were sent on a suicide mission. Three tanks against American army and mean it was nonsense, but Gustav never had a choice in this. He was a simple farm kid from northern Germany, grew up on the windswept fields family use to harvest their crops sunup to sundown. Sometimes a work by the light of the moon.

He had no radio, no electricity. His hobby was to go and peddle his bicycle to the nearby railroad tracks to watch trains go by on the Homburg to Bremen line want to be a locomotive conductor but Gustav. He saw on a human even in his enemy and 17 years old when he is drafted, they took one look at this little Germany was barely 5 foot blonde hair and they said you're going into the panzers. You're the perfect size for them will say no, no, there is there is no saying I don't think so I think I'll abstain from this assignment I object to this war.

He knew nothing about this Hitler guy the only Jewish person. Gustav knew growing up was a neighboring farmer and his neighboring farmer had once landed his family a cow to help them through a tough time and never asked for anything in return. So that was his worldview of the Jewish people are generous. They help my family. Why are they Hitler's enemy least two guys are trading machine gun fire now searching for one another, trying to see a ricochets trying to see the tracers hit something and Clarence is getting frustrated because he's unable hit Gustav Tanksley does something really clever loads up an armor piercing round he start shooting through the building where Gustav's tank is hiding.

She is one shot to leasing bricks. The building which is been damaged by her rates because the whole city had been hit by 200+ air raids whole city was rubble largely in this building starts to cave in and Clarence shoots it again and again and eventually brings down the building on the Gustav's tank and knocks Gustav's turret out of whack and Gustav eventually has to get out of that tank and he decides I've had enough of fighting for Germany and he runs away and hides and then this one moment of what you might say is freethinking, deciding I'm done with this undone risking my life for the third Reich so he runs away in his later survives thanks to what Clarence did. Clarence fights a second tank though. What happened was he was held up battling Gustav so the Army sent to Sherman tanks forward toward Cologne's Cathedral massive Gothic cathedral built over 600 years. One of the wonders of the world and it was still standing. It was black and it was battered but it was still there and behind the Cathedral was the Rhine River and the Germans had blown the bridge over the Rhine, so we knew we were getting across. Today we still had to win the battle and we knew once we reach the Cathedral. You've reached the Rhine Cologne is ours. These two sermons are about to seize victory when suddenly the right one gets hit in the left one gets hit by an unseen German tank. There was a panther tank hiding in a tunnel and ambush both of them. You see, the commander of one of these tanks. Carl Kellner comes out is a young man from Sheboygan, Wisconsin got glasses. He had just gotten a battlefield commission a few weeks earlier he had a fiancée waiting for them back home and he rolls over the turret with his leg missing and he bleeds to death right in front of their eyes. So in the last hour of the battle. There's a tank out there still killing Americans in Clarence's crew is given the call, they hear the call come out on the radio. Can anybody deal with this panther tank as it pulled up in a parked in front of the Cathedral. The ultimate metaphor really you have this place of of of faith and in worship, and then you had this enemy was parked in front of us and working to keep you from this and were in a fight to the last round. They were fanatics. A lot of German soldiers were now swimming the Rhine. They were surrendering in droves.

And these guys decided to fight to the end and Clarence's crew came up in their purging and they fought this incredible duel with this German panther. Clarence's purging starts coming up a parallel street ready to breach the intersection come face-to-face with this panther. The Panthers gun turns and is facing the empty intersection where Clarence's tank is coming German commander inside that panther had gotten restless. He saw no more Americans coming where he knocked out the Sherman solicitor can come at me from another direction so we aim to this empty intersection. Clarence had a plan, which was when we get there. Were going to go into the intersection and shoot them once organ a backup because he had been schooled in the idea that it takes more than one hit kill a German tank. But when his tank pulled into that intersection. The driver saw the panther and he saw that he was looking down that black muzzle of this German gun that could snuff his life in the driver panicked.

He floored the throttle and he threw the purging out into the middle of the intersection that I have two tanks broadside, both with their guns facing each other's like two battleships. Clarence was quick on the trigger and even the German gunner, who was waiting for him so he fired.

He didn't name. He just fired anywhere he could in this German tank and shook the tank and he rattled it and the concussion shook the men inside and started to smoke in one German crewmen decided to leave and then a second, decided they start pouring out of the hatches and that German gunner did not squeeze his trigger so Clarence now knows he is another problem. There's five men in that German tank in any one of them can reach over, pull the trigger and the purging is going to go up in flames. So he shoots it a second time.

He moves his fire forwarding fires it through the crew compartment and then he calls for reloading fires 1/3 time they radioed back any further and will be swimming Cologne is secured they had literally stared death in the face and the other tankers were so thankful that they had gone and done.

This knocked out this panther because other men had been sent in lesser tanks and they were told.

Juergen have to go after the panther next if this purging fails, these guys would come up and they bring them bottles of champagne that they just looted one crew came up and they said you saved our lives.

And Clarence said well I really save my life and yours was just along for the ride is got a self-effacing like that.

But he became a 21-year-old Cpl. from coal country Pennsylvania who conquered a German city like Napoleon. Next thing you know it's in the newsreels around the country and Clarence's family was called to the movie theater because they always play the newsreel right before the main picture and sure enough, his mother and father for the first time in their lives. They were so poor they never been to the movies before they sat in the theater and they saw the desperate fighting in Cologne, and they heard the newscaster and they saw their son come up out of the turret. They said my God is alive. After vanquishing the panther. Clarence was hailed as the hero of Cologne and nominated for the Braun store tell us how we lost that award, Bob Earley, who commanded the tank at that time he get the Braun start two days later Clarence was wandering the streets and there was a bunch of German kids there. There were still 40,000 people living the city 40,000 civilians in these German kids saw an American coming in.

The fear had been gone by then. These kids came up to Clarence's gentle giant and they start begging for bubblegum and Clarence was standing there and their mother was sitting on the steps of their ruined house and he saw these three or four kids. He gets down. He says guys I don't have any gum. I don't have any gum and finally he shooing them over to their mother. He's got his hand on their back.

He pushing them to their mother. When the MPs come around the corner in their Jeep and they pull up the jeep and they say we gotcha fraternizing with a young woman, and three or four kids you're talking to the enemy. Couple days later Clarence's commanding officer comes in. He says I was so proud of how you knocked out. That part panther tank and now you go and do this and it was absolute, utter nonsense. It was that sort of elitism that you see sometimes Clarence lost a bronze star that day all over stick of gum and you're listening to Ada Mako's telling the story of Clarence Moyer. The book is spearhead of Amazon.com and get it you won't regret it. More of this great story, great World War II story here on our American store and we continue with our American stories and the story of parents more, as told by Evan Mako's wonderful book spearhead when we last left off. Clarence had won the battle of Cologne receive their loss. Is Braun store managed what happens next battle at what was called the Nazi Fort Knox will the third armored division again had been leading the way. Since France Eisenhower and the brass are trying to figure how to win the war.

What's the heart of Germany is at Berlin where Hitler is hiding out or is it the Ruhr Valley were Germany's producing all their munitions and their: their steel and they decided to leave the symbolic victory to the Russians.

Let them take Berlin working to take the Ruhr's organ and circle the Ruhr pocket hell on wheels can come around from the north, working to come up from the south and organ a pincer them and were gonna seal the Ruhr work and end the war.

To do so. Though the third armored division had to make an epic drive they went hundred miles in 24 hours behind enemy lines were seen through German villages through German autobahns. The German soldiers on the side of the road would just look up and drop their rifles because they see this American armored column just racing at full speed right past them.

It was awe-inspiring. So after running radio silent for for 24 hours. The spearhead division reaches the city called Paderborn Paderborn was the gateway to the Ruhr. It was the city that all the communication rails rail lines flowed through to reach the worse we had to take this place.

The downside was was the home of the German armor schools was a Nazi. Fort Knox is a called it the SS train their tankers there.

The Wehrmacht train their tankers. They tested their new tanks. Those men would be coming out to fight, and in a sad twist of fate, Gen. Rose, who was leading Clarence's division. There he was always out front like Patton and he got ambushed the night before the big battle. The Nazi Fort Knox a bunch of German tanks had hidden in the field and ambushes column they wiped out this American column when Gen. Rose tried to surrender to one of the German tankers we tried to lower the pistol belt from his hips.

The German in the tank who was holding us miser machine-gun thought Rose was going for his gun and he pumped them for 30 bullets entire magazine into general roasted generals became the highest-ranking Jewish-American killed in Europe highest ranking officer and this is on the eve of the battle for the Nazi Fort Knox. This takes place on April 1, 1945. It was Easter morning and it was almost a scene right out of II think alike Braveheart where William Wallace is about to rally his troops for that first battle he gives at speech about freedom and in this case is was real.

The tanks lined up on this hillside overlooking Paderborn and the sun is rising behind them and a chaplain is going from tank to tank giving a blessing in the men are taking off their hats are coming out of the turret summer coming down to the ground and kneeling in the soggy ground and he blesses each of the tanks down the row and that's where Clarence looks at all these guys. That's we kinda came that final epiphany, and that is there all my family and he's gonna lead with the biggest gun with the biggest tank and he knows he can be the biggest target, and so they charge across this field into the teeth of the German tanks who were guarding what was called the Paderborn railyard and this is amazing battle where Germans were hiding in the shell holes in these RSS men. These are a lot of them. The most fanatical Germans. They were the only ones would still be fighting at this point and Clarence is getting fire from the railyard itself. The German tanks are picking them officer charging across the field as you start at 15 tanks is how many got in there 33 reached the Paderborn railyard and Clarence's tank is there an amazingly they get hit first time in the war. Clarence gets hit gets hit on the muzzle of his gun and at first the smoke came into the tank and the crew thought there tank was on fire, so we actually see Clarence's crew in the pitched battle.

The last battle abandon tank and they go hide in the ditch and the bullets are cutting over there had the SS are swarming the railyard. There's German tanks moving around them, and Clarence is now hiding in a ditch.

The other two Sherman tanks that are with them. One gets hit. It's chaos there is now one Sherman tank trying to hold its own against all of these enemies converging on them.

That's when Clarence had this bright idea.

He looked at the muzzle of the purging and he said it hit us, but I think it hit the muzzle casing. It didn't hit the gun tube itself and they knew this was gonna be a gamble. He said we can get back in that we can still fire this gun. The downside was if he was wrong. If there was an obstruction you fire that gun through broken barrel that back glasses coming in the turret, you are dead and so they ran back into that tank.

While the enemy is shooting at them some Clarence's crew had to go under the tank and into the escape hatch. The bullets were so many they get in the tank and Clarence's sides are working to keep fighting and then he gets a tap on the shoulder. His commander Bob really says tank and he taps him on the right shoulder and he says 5 o'clock, 5 o'clock that's behind you that's over your right shoulder, a German tank it's not behind them no more than seconds after they got back in the tank and Clarence turns the gun. There's one problem he's got a round load in the gun. That's not made for taking out tanks is a high explosive rounds meant for fighting all those troops that are swarming them. It's gonna bounce right off of that tank and worse, it's a panther and he can just feel his commander now gripping his shoulder. Clarence does something amazing and again I was Cesar best Gunnar World War II he swings. I got over.

He knows the time it takes to take that shell out and change it for an armor piercing is going to get them killed. So when his gun is turning toward the panther right when it appears in front of panther he shoots at armor piercing started that high explosive shell into the soil and the soil throws up this massive cloud from the panther. It blinds the enemy Gunnar Clarence calls for reload his loader slams an armor piercing shell and locks a breach.

Clarence fires right through the panther through its thickest armor and the armor piercing shell goes and knocks out the enemy tank. The Germans assaulting the railyard all see this. The Germans lose heart and run away and the battle is saved the rest of the American forces make it into railyard. They take Paderborn.

They take the Nazi Fort Knox and that they Clarence for the first time he looked inside the tank that he destroyed and for the first time he owned up to the fact that he was an American tank on talk about coming home. What was that like talk about his life after the war. Clarence came home and he had planned on relaxing little bit but then one of his buddies had hay all the boys are coming back.

You never can find a job if you don't grab one now so five days later after his home goes and gets a job within a year he marries and he walks away all of the never saw so newsreel film decades pass.

Finally, the 90s and somebody finds that film may send it to them on a VHS is living in a mobile home park up in Palmer 10, Pennsylvania in one quiet afternoon. He puts that VHS and he watches himself and suddenly all the bad memories from World War II. For some reason it triggered the bad memories he goes through the years. This kind of suffering through trauma.

Finally, 2013 arrives and he's been urged to talk about it. Everybody says talk about your story, go to the VA talk to the veterans or any goes to the VA and he realizes these kids are all from Iraq.

Their offer Mike Afghanistan and want to hear from an old man of World War II with white hair. Sleep finally comes to a conclusion.

There's only one person I can talk to one person who really know what I went to her because his whole tanker was dead by then they'd all passed. There's only one man left. He could talk to and that was the German he fought against. And so they track down Gustav Schaefer. They found out he was still living in Gustav was willing to meet March 2013.

He steps in front of the Cologne Cathedral looking around seeing every crowd passing by, looking for his enemy in Gustav Schaefer appeared in the two men approached both very hesitant because neither knew how the other would accept him and then finally they stuck stuck out their hands. They started shaking. They didn't stop shaking. They wrap their arms around each other and they start hugging and Clarence leaned over to Gustav.

He said the war is over, we can be friends now Gustav said Yaya Goot, and they went back to the hotel.

Gustav remembered some English from his days as a POW I got to watch these guys sit on the couch at the Hilton Cologne, each with a cloche beer in hand and they started swapping stories. They start talking about the action they'd seen the battle they had fought. Navin told jokes. Clarence said our tank had a refrigerator and it did years. Gustav said Yaya only in wintertime these guys hit it off in the next day they went to the place where they had fought a stood on the same stream.

Gustav said this is where I was parked.

This is where I was when I'm shooting at you are said this is where I was. Gustav said you know I'm kind of thankful you shot that building over on us.

Otherwise, one of us would've died that day, and they walked away as friends they would exchange Christmas cards.

They were penpals.

They even talked on Skype if you can imagine that two men in their 90s, sitting down 5000 miles apart.

Clarence on the laptop Gustav on his desktop and they talked face-to-face I was your day. It's good to see you what is in your been listening to Adam medicos telling the story of Clarence Moyer, my goodness, there's just so much there in front of that same door. They admit so many decades before they embrace and became friends. A beautiful beautiful story Clarence Moyer story the way Gustav Schaefer story to your own L American story