On the morning of July 11th, 1943, paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division crouched behind crumbling stone walls on the outskirts of Gella, Sicily, watching German tanks rolled toward the beach where American soldiers were still wading ashore. The tanks were panzas from the Herman Guring division, their engines growling as they advanced through the morning dust.
The German column stretched back along the road, armor and infantry moving in coordinated waves toward the vulnerable beach head. Behind the tanks came German soldiers, rifles ready, advancing with the confidence of men who had conquered most of Europe. The American beach head was less than a mile away. Landing craft were still depositing soldiers onto the sand.
Supply ships sat offshore, unable to leave until they finished unloading. If those tanks reached the shore, they would slaughter thousands of men caught in the open. The entire invasion could fail here on this dusty Sicilian road in the next hour. The paratroopers had been in Sicily for barely 19 hours. Most had never seen enemy soldiers before.
Most had never experienced combat, and the only weapon they had that could possibly stop a German tank was a 5-ft metal tube that many of them had never even fired before. It was called the M1 rocket launcher. The official designation was launcher rocket anti-tank 2.36 in M1, but the soldiers had already given it a different name.
They called it the bazooka after a strange musical instrument played by a radio comedian named Bob Burns. The name sounded almost silly. The weapon was anything but. Most of these men had fired only a handful of practice rounds with this weapon during training. Now they were expected to use it against the Herman Guring division, one of the most feared armored units in the German military.
Veterans of campaigns across Europe and North Africa. What happened over the next several hours would prove that the balance of power between infantry and armor had fundamentally changed. And the Germans, who had dominated tank warfare for 3 years, were about to learn that lesson in the most brutal way possible. Before the bazooka existed, an infantryman facing a tank had almost no options.
He could run, he could hide, or he could die. Those were the choices. The mathematics of infantry versus armor in 1941 were simple and terrifying. A German Panza 3 weighed over 20 tons. It carried a 50 mm cannon that could destroy anything in its path. Its machine guns could sweep an entire field of advancing infantry. Its armor could stop rifle bullets, machine gun fire, even hand grenades.
A single tank could scatter an entire infantry company. A platoon of tanks could break through defensive lines that had held for weeks. The psychological impact was devastating. Infantry soldiers who saw tanks approaching often simply ran. They knew their weapons were useless. They knew that standing their ground meant death.
Tank crews sometimes reported advancing through enemy positions without firing a shot because the infantry had fled at the first sight of armor. The weapons infantry had against tanks were inadequate at best and suicidal at worst. Anti-tank rifles existed. Enormous weapons that looked like oversized hunting rifles. The German Panzer Books 39 fired a 7.
92 mm tungsten core round that could penetrate maybe 25 mm of armor at close range. The British boy’s anti-tank rifle was even larger, firing a 14.5 mm round. Both weapons weighed nearly 40 lb. Both required soldiers to fire from exposed positions, lying prone or kneeling, making themselves easy targets for tank machine guns, and both were becoming obsolete as tank armor grew thicker.
By 1942, anti-tank rifles could barely scratch the front armor of newer German tanks. Toed anti-tank guns were more effective. The American 37 mm gun and later the 57 mm gun could penetrate tank armor from reasonable distances. But these weapons had critical limitations. They required tow vehicles or horses to move.
Setting them up took valuable minutes. Once positioned, they could not be quickly relocated if tanks changed direction. Gun crews were terribly vulnerable to enemy fire, and the guns were heavy, expensive, and available only in limited numbers. The most common method for infantry to destroy a tank was also the most desperate. Soldiers could attack tanks with mines, grenades, or explosive charges.
But this required getting within arms reach of an enemy vehicle. Some armies issued magnetic mines that could be attached to tank holes. Others developed improvised explosives that soldiers could throw or place manually. All of these methods required a soldier to run up to a tank that was firing machine guns and cannon, place an explosive device while under fire, and somehow escape before detonation.
The survival rate for soldiers attempting this was catastrophic. Studies after the war estimated that fewer than one in five soldiers who attempted close assault on tanks survived the experience. For every tank destroyed by infantry close assault, three or four soldiers died. American military planners understood they had a critical gap in their capabilities.
German panzas had crushed Poland in 27 days. They had broken through France with its massive fortifications and large army. In just 6 weeks, they had pushed deep into the Soviet Union, destroying entire armies, capturing millions of soldiers. Everywhere the panzas went, infantry scattered before them. The United States Army needed a weapon that could give a single soldier the power to stop a tank.
It needed to be portable, light enough for one or two men to carry. It needed to be simple to operate, usable by drafties with minimal training. It needed to be cheap to produce in the massive quantities that American industry could provide. And it needed to be devastating on impact, capable of penetrating the armor of modern tanks.
In 1941, no such weapon existed anywhere in the world. The solution came from two army officers working in a cramped workshop at the Abedine Proving Ground in Maryland and later at a small facility in Indian Head, Maryland. Major Leslie Alfred Skinner, who would later retire as a colonel, was a West Point graduate, class of 1924, who had been fascinated with rockets since childhood.
In 1915, as a 15-year-old living on a military base where his father served as an army surgeon, young Leslie had experimented with homemade rockets. One experiment went badly wrong, setting fire to the roof of the base hospital at Fort Strong, Massachusetts. His father forbade any further rocket experiments, but the fascination never left him.
Skinner studied at West Point, qualified as an airship pilot, and eventually found his way into the army’s rocket research program. By 1940, he was running a nearly non-existent program with almost no funding, no staff, and no clear direction. His entire team consisted of himself and one assistant, a young second left tenant named Edward Ole.
Ul had graduated from Lehi University in Pennsylvania in 1940 with a degree in engineering physics. He joined the army in 1941 and was assigned to the Ordinance Corps. He was 24 years old, brilliant, and utterly inexperienced in military weapons development. Their mission was to find a way for a single infantryman to deliver a shaped charge grenade against enemy armor.
The shaped charge itself was not new. The principle had been discovered decades earlier by Charles Edward Monroe, an American chemist who noticed that explosives could be focused and directed by shaping the charge in particular ways by hollowing out the front of an explosive charge and lining it with metal. The detonation would produce a concentrated jet of superheated gas and molten metal that could punch through armor like a blowtorrch through butter.
The army had already developed shaped charge grenades. The M10 grenade could penetrate several inches of steel, enough to defeat most tank armor. But the grenade weighed nearly 4 lb. Far too heavy to throw accurately by hand. Too heavy to fire from the end of a rifle like a standard grenade. The only practical way to use the weapon was for a soldier to run up and physically place it on an enemy tank.
Skinner and Ool needed to find another way to deliver that shaped charge to the target. For months they experimented with various delivery systems. They tried adapting existing rifle grenade launchers. The grenades were too heavy. They tried small mortars. The mortars were too bulky and too slow. They tried mounting the shaped charge on small rockets.
Building on research that the legendary physicist Robert Godard had conducted during World War I. The rockets worked. A small solid fuel motor could propel the shaped charge to effective ranges. But rockets created a dangerous problem. When the motor ignited, it produced a jet of flame and hot gases that shot directly backward.
Any soldier who fired such a weapon would be burned by his own exhaust. The flame could ignite clothing, cause severe burns, even kill the shooter. Skinner and Ul experimented with different rocket designs, different propellants, different ignition systems. Nothing solved the exhaust problem. The rocket had to vent hot gases somewhere, and wherever those gases went, they posed a danger to the soldier firing the weapon.
The breakthrough came in the spring of 1942. Lieutenant Ool was walking through a scrap pile at the testing facility, thinking about the exhaust problem when he noticed a discarded metal tube. It was about 5 ft long and 60 mm in diameter, exactly the same size as the grenade they were trying to weaponize. Ool stared at that tube and had a sudden realization.
If you put the rocket inside a tube, and if the tube was long enough, the rocket motor would finish burning before the rocket emerged from the front, the exhaust gases would vent safely out the back of the tube behind the soldier. While the rocket flew out the front toward the target, the tube would act as both a launcher and a shield.
It would direct the rocket in a straight line, improving accuracy. It would protect the shooter from the exhaust and it would be light, simple, and cheap to manufacture. Grabbed the tube from the scrap pile and ran back to the workshop. He found Skinner and explained his idea. Within hours, they had assembled a crude prototype.
They mounted the tube on a simple wooden shoulder stock. They added basic sights improvised from a piece of wire bent from a coat hanger. They loaded one of their experimental rockets into the back of the tube and connected the ignition wires. The first test firing was conducted with Ool wearing a welding helmet and heavy gloves just in case the tube exploded.
He knelt, aimed at a target, and squeezed the trigger. The rocket ignited with a whoosh. Flame and smoke vented harmlessly out the back of the tube. The rocket flew straight and true, striking the target and detonating with a sharp crack. The shaped charge punched a clean hole through the steel plate. It worked. The tube design solved every problem they had been struggling with.
The weapon weighed barely 13 lb. It could be operated by two men, one to aim and fire, one to load. It could deliver a tank killing shaped charge to ranges of over 100 yards. And it was so simple that it could be manufactured quickly and cheaply in enormous quantities. They had created the world’s first practical shoulder-fired anti-tank rocket launcher.
On a May morning in 1942, Skinner and Ool took their prototype to Abedine Proving Ground for a formal demonstration. A competitive trial had been organized to test various infantry anti-tank weapons, primarily different types of spigot mortars that were considered the most promising approach at the time. By coincidence, or perhaps not entirely by coincidence, Major General Gladon Marcus Barnes happened to be present that day.
Barnes was the chief of research and engineering in the ordinance department, one of the most important officers in the entire weapons procurement system. He was touring the facility with several other senior officers when he noticed the strange commotion at the rocket launcher test range, the flames and whooshing sounds, the clouds of smoke.
Barnes and his party came over to investigate. They found Skinner and firing their crude tube launcher at a moving tank target. Despite the improvised wire coat hanger sights, the rockets were hitting the tank with remarkable accuracy. The five different spigot mortars being tested in the same competition had failed to score a single hit on the moving target.
Skinner recognized his opportunity. Taking a calculated risk that could have ended his career if things went wrong. He handed the launcher to General Barnes and offered to let him take a shot. Barnes accepted. He shouldered the weapon, aimed at the moving tank, and fired. The rocket hit the tank squarely on his first try. Barnes was delighted.
He fired again. Other officers wanted to try. Within minutes, they had fired off every available round, laughing and exclaiming at the power and accuracy of the strange weapon. Barnes looked at the tube and commented that it reminded him of a musical instrument he had seen in a comedy act, a bizarre creation called a bazooka that was played by the radio comedian Bob Burns.
The nickname stuck immediately from that moment on. Despite its official designations, the weapon would be known as the bazooka. General Barnes did not wait for committees or studies or lengthy procurement processes. The weapon was ordered into immediate production. General Electric was given a contract to deliver 5,000 launchers and 25,000 rockets in 30 days.
It was one of the fastest weapons development contracts in American military history. The engineers at General Electric worked around the clock. Production lines were established at the company’s Bridgeport, Connecticut facility. The launcher design was simplified for mass production, keeping the basic tube configuration, but replacing the wooden stock with metal, improving the sights, and adding safety features.
General Electric met its deadline. By midJune of 1942, 5,000 bazookas were ready for shipment, but the weapon was so new, so secret that almost no one outside the development program knew it existed. There were no training manuals. There were no instruction films. There were no experienced instructors who could teach soldiers how to use the weapon.
The bazookas were packed in crates and loaded onto ships. But the soldiers who would use them had never seen anything like them. The first bazookas arrived in North Africa in September of 1942. 600 launchers were shipped to British forces in Egypt for potential use in the Western Desert campaign. When British commanders tested the weapon against a captured Panza 3, the Bazooka rocket penetrated the frontal armor cleanly.
But the British decided that the desert terrain offered too little concealment for such a short range weapon. A soldier would have to get within 200 yards of a tank across open desert where any movement could be seen for miles. The British stored their bazookas and did not use them in combat.
American forces received their first bazookas during Operation Torch. the Allied invasion of North Africa that began in November of 1942. But the distribution was chaotic. Crates arrived at supply depots with labels that quartermaster officers did not recognize. The designation launcher rocket anti-tank 2.36 in M1 meant nothing to soldiers who had never heard of such a weapon.
General Dwight Eisenhower, commanding the invasion force, was shocked to learn on the night before the landings that not a single soldier in his invasion force had received any training with the bazooka. The weapons were there, packed in their crates, but no one knew how to use them. Officers had to figure out through trial and error how the system worked.
They opened crates, examined the strange tubes and rockets, and experimented with loading and firing procedures. The early M6 rocket ammunition was notoriously unreliable. Some rockets failed to ignite when the trigger was pulled. Others ignited but failed to achieve full thrust, dropping short of the target.
A few detonated prematurely in the tube, injuring or killing the soldiers firing them. Despite these problems, the bazooka began to prove its value. Reports filtered back from Tunisia of German tanks being engaged by infantry with shoulder fired rockets. The kills were few at first, limited by unreliable ammunition and untrained crews.
But the psychological impact was significant. American soldiers, who had been taught that tanks were nearly invincible, suddenly had a weapon that gave them a fighting chance. The Germans noticed immediately. German intelligence officers analyzed reports from Tunisia with growing concern. American infantry was using some kind of new rocket weapon that could penetrate tank armor.
The weapon appeared to be portable, carried by individual soldiers. It could be fired from concealed positions with no advanced warning. Tank crews, who had grown accustomed to infantry fleeing before them, now faced an enemy that might stand and fight. In late 1942 and early 1943, German forces captured several intact bazookas from American units in North Africa and from Soviet forces who had received some through lend lease on the Eastern front.
The captured weapons were shipped back to Germany for immediate analysis. German engineers disassembled the bazookas, studied their construction, measured their components, and tested their performance. They recognized immediately that the Americans had achieved something revolutionary. This was not just another anti-tank weapon.
This was a new category of weapon entirely. A shoulder-fired rocket launcher that could kill tanks and be carried by a single soldier. Within months, German industry began producing its own version. The Rakit and Panzabuka, better known as the Panzer Shrek, entered production in 1943. The German designers made significant changes.
They increased the warhead diameter from 60 mm to 88 mm, giving the weapon greater armor penetration. They replaced the electrical battery ignition system with a magneto generator, eliminating concerns about batteries failing in cold weather on the Eastern Front. But the larger warhead and heavier construction made the Panzer Shrek more cumbersome than the American original.
It weighed over 20 lb. The rocket motor produced enormous amounts of hot exhaust that continued burning for several feet after leaving the tube. Operators had to wear protective ponchos and gas masks to avoid being burned by their own weapon. A protective shield had to be added to the launcher to protect the shooter’s face.
The fact that Germany immediately copied the bazooka tells you everything about its impact. The Germans were not accustomed to copying enemy weapons. German military technology was generally considered superior to Allied equipment. German tanks, aircraft, and weapons were the standard against which others were measured.
The Vermacht’s engineering prowess had produced the Tiger tank, the Mi262 jet fighter, the V2 rocket. German industry was a source of national pride, but the bazooka filled a gap that German designers had not solved. The Germans had been working on their own infantry anti-tank weapons, including the Panza series of disposable launchers and the earlier Papupchion rocket gun, but they recognized that the American bazooka design was superior in important ways.
It was reusable, allowing a twoman team to fire multiple rockets without discarding their launcher. It was more accurate than the Panza Foust with sights that allowed aimed fire at moving targets. It could engage targets at greater range, keeping soldiers further from the deadly machine guns mounted on tank turrets.
German engineers studied the captured bazookas with professional admiration. The simplicity of the design impressed them. The Americans had solved the infantry anti-tank problem with elegant economy. Using basic materials and straightforward engineering, the tube, the rocket, the electrical ignition system, all were simple enough to be mass-roduced in enormous quantities.
yet effective enough to threaten any tank on the battlefield. By copying and enlarging the bazooka, Germany acknowledged that the Americans had achieved a genuine breakthrough in weapons technology. The age of infantry hiding from tanks was ending. The age of infantry hunting tanks had begun. This shift in the balance of power would reshape how armies thought about armored warfare for generations to come.
Back in Sicily on that morning of July 11th, 1943, the soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division were about to demonstrate what that change meant in practice. The paratroopers had jumped into Sicily during the night of July 9th to 10th, preceding the beach landings. Their mission was to seize key terrain, disrupt German communications, and prevent counterattacks against the invasion beaches.
But the airborne operation had been badly scattered. High winds had blown transport aircraft off course. Many paratroopers had landed miles from their designated drop zones. Units were fragmented across the Sicilian countryside. Small groups of lost soldiers trying to find each other in the darkness. Colonel James Gavin, commanding the 5005th Parachute Infantry Regiment, spent the pre-dawn hours gathering scattered paratroopers.
By morning, he had assembled several hundred men near the key crossroads at Biaza Ridge, overlooking the routes that German reinforcements would use to attack the invasion beaches. Gavin’s force was badly outnumbered and outgunned. They had no tanks, no artillery support beyond a few pack 75 mm howitzers that had been dropped with them.
Their anti-tank capability consisted of a handful of bazooka teams equipped with the newer M1 A1 launchers and improved M6A1 rockets that had better reliability than the earlier ammunition. When German tanks appeared on the morning of July 11th, rolling toward the vulnerable beaches, Gavin faced a stark choice. He could withdraw and let the tanks pass, preserving his force but possibly dooming the entire invasion.
Or he could fight with inadequate weapons and untested soldiers against one of Germany’s elite armored divisions. Gavin chose to fight. The tanks that appeared belonged to the Herman Guring division, a Luftvafa Panza unit that had fought across North Africa. They were battleh hardened veterans in well-maintained tanks supported by experienced infantry.
Among their vehicles were Tiger the First tanks from Schwera Panza Abtailong 504. The massive heavy tanks that had terrorized Allied forces since their introduction in 1942. The Tiger was a monster. It weighed over 56 tons, dwarfing the American Sherman tanks that weighed barely 30. Its 88 mm main gun was the most powerful tank cannon in the world, capable of destroying any Allied tank at ranges exceeding a mile.
Its frontal armor was 100 mm thick, effectively impervious to most Allied anti-tank weapons. American tankers had been warned that engaging a Tiger from the front was suicide. Against these behemoths, Gavin had paratroopers with rifles, a few light artillery pieces, and bazooka teams that had limited experience firing their weapons at actual enemy tanks.
Gavin ordered his men to let the tanks come close. The terrain around Biaza Ridge offered advantages that infantry could exploit. Stone walls bordered the fields. Olive groves provided concealment. Farmhouses and outuildings created strong points. A force that knew how to use this terrain could hurt an enemy that tried to push through without proper reconnaissance.
The paratroopers spread out into positions that maximized their advantages. Bazooka teams were placed where they could hit tanks from the sides and rear where the armor was thinner. Riflemen and machine gunners were positioned to keep German infantry away from the bazooka teams. The pack howitzers were dug in to provide direct fire support.
The German tanks advanced confidently. They were accustomed to infantry fleeing before them. Across Europe, soldiers had learned that standing against tanks was futile. The Americans would run as others had run and the tanks would roll through to the beaches, but the Americans did not run. When the first panzas entered the engagement zone, Gavin’s men opened fire.
Machine guns rad the German infantry. Mortars dropped rounds among the advancing soldiers. And from concealed positions throughout the battlefield, bazooka teams began engaging the tanks. Rockets streaked across the Sicilian morning and slammed into tank holes. Not every shot penetrated. The original M6 rockets could penetrate about 60 mm of armor, roughly 2 and a half in, which was sufficient against the sides and rear of most German medium tanks, but inadequate against frontal armor or the heavy Tigers.
The improved M6A1 rockets performed somewhat better. Bazooka teams had to aim carefully, targeting the thinner armor plates, the tracks, the engine compartments. Not every hit disabled a tank. Some rockets struck at bad angles and deflected away. Others penetrated but failed to cause critical damage. But enough rounds found their marks to throw the German advance into chaos.
The psychological effect on the German tankers was profound. They had expected to crush these scattered paratroopers in minutes. Instead, they were taking losses from weapons they had never encountered in combat before. Rockets were coming from multiple directions. Every stone wall, every building, every patch of vegetation could hide a soldier with a bazooka.
Tank commanders began to hesitate. The confident advance slowed. Crews that had been pressing forward aggressively became cautious, scanning constantly for hidden threats. The fear of an unseen rocket fired by a concealed soldier from close range changed how the Germans fought. The battle at Batza Ridge continued through the morning.
The Germans pushed forward. The Americans fell back to new positions and the fighting swirled across the ridge. Both sides took casualties. At times the outcome hung in the balance, but the German armored advance never achieved the breakthrough it needed. By afternoon, reinforcements from the beach had begun reaching Gavin’s position.
American Sherman tanks joined the fight. Artillery support became available. The balance shifted. The Herman Guring division withdrew to regroup. The American beach head was secure. The battle at Biaza Ridge was not a decisive victory in the traditional sense. It was a delaying action, a desperate stand by outnumbered paratroopers, but it demonstrated something new.
Infantry equipped with bazookas could fight tanks and survive. The old equation, where armor always defeated infantry, no longer applied. Word spread through German armored units. American infantry now carried weapons that could kill tanks. The old tactics of simply driving through infantry positions no longer worked reliably.
Every hedge, every ditch, every ruined building could conceal a soldier with a bazooka. Tank commanders had to assume that anti-tank rockets could come from any direction at any time. German military reports from late 1943 reflect this growing concern. Tank crews were ordered to avoid operating without close infantry support.
Armored advances were slowed as commanders demanded thorough reconnaissance of potential ambush positions before committing tanks. The psychological dominance that German armor had enjoyed since the beginning of the war was eroding. The Sicilian campaign saw continued proof of the bazooka’s effectiveness. M1 A1 launchers with improved rockets destroyed four medium German tanks in various engagements.
In one notable action during the broader Sicily campaign, a bazooka team even knocked out a Tiger 1 heavy tank through an improbable hit on a weak point on the massive vehicle. Captain Murray Pulver of the 120th Infantry Regiment earned the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions in France in July 1944, during which he used a bazooka to knock out enemy tanks that were threatening his platoon.
Pulver later remarked that he always swore by the bazooka and it never let him down. His sentiment was shared by thousands of soldiers who learned to trust the strange tube weapon that turned infantry into tank hunters. By the time American forces landed in Normandy on June 6th, 1944, the bazooka had become a standard infantry weapon. Every American rifle company was equipped with them.
Soldiers had trained extensively on their use. The improved M9 launcher with its magneto ignition system had replaced the batterypowered M1 series, eliminating problems with dead batteries and unreliable electrical connections. The newer M6 are three rockets could penetrate up to 4 in of armor, a significant improvement over the original ammunition.
The Bokage country of Normandy with its thick hedgeros and narrow lanes was ideal terrain for bazooka ambushes. Every field was enclosed by ancient earthen banks topped with dense vegetation that had grown for centuries. These hedge were not simple hedge fences. They were substantial barriers, sometimes 6 ft thick and 8 ft tall, with root systems so dense that even tanks had difficulty breaking through.
German tank crews found themselves in a nightmare landscape where visibility was measured in yards, not hundreds of yards. Every field entrance was a potential ambush point. Every hedge could conceal an enemy. And American soldiers with bazookas had learned to use this terrain with devastating effectiveness. Bazooka teams adopted tactics that maximized their advantages.
They would hide in the hedge rows, allowing tanks to pass, then fire at the vulnerable rear armor. They would position themselves at field entrances, waiting for tanks to commit to pushing through narrow gaps where they could not turn or maneuver. They would work in teams with multiple bazookas engaging the same target from different angles.
The Bokage earned a grim nickname among the soldiers who fought there. They called it the green hell. Not because of the terrain itself, but because of what waited in that terrain. The constant fear of a bazooka rocket coming from an unseen position wore on tank crews. The stress was relentless. Even when no rockets came, the fear that they might come at any moment kept crews on edge.
Sleep became difficult. Appetites diminished. Commanders who had been aggressive and confident became cautious and hesitant. The psychological burden fell heaviest on the tank commanders who rode with their heads exposed above the turret hatch. Standard German doctrine called for commanders to observe the battlefield from this exposed position to maintain situational awareness.
But in the Bokehage, an exposed head was a target for American snipers and a tempting aim point for bazooka teams. Commanders who kept their hatches closed had better protection but worse visibility, making them more vulnerable to ambush. Tank crews began developing coping mechanisms. Some crews welded additional armor plates to their vehicles, scavenging metal from destroyed equipment or abandoned buildings.
Others piled sandbags on their hulls, hoping to detonate shaped charge warheads before they could penetrate the main armor. Neither solution was particularly effective, but both demonstrated the psychological impact of the bazooka threat. Some German tank commanders refused to advance without extensive infantry screening.
Others insisted on thorough reconnaissance of every field and hedge row before committing their vehicles. The tempo of German armored operations slowed dramatically as fear of bazooka ambushes constrained tactical options. Attacks that should have been completed in hours stretched into days. Advances that should have covered miles stalled after hundreds of yards.
Technical Sergeant Van Thomas Baroot of the 45th Infantry Division demonstrated what a skilled and courageous soldier could accomplish with a bazooka during the Italian campaign on May 23rd, 1944 near the town of Kurano during the breakout from the Anzio Beach head. Baroot’s company was defending positions when three German Mark 6 tanks attacked.
Baroot assessed the situation with the calm of a veteran. He had been fighting since Sicily. He knew what bazookas could and could not do. He knew that engaging heavy tanks required getting dangerously close and aiming precisely at vulnerable points. He grabbed a bazooka and ammunition and moved to an exposed position directly in front of the advancing tanks.
While his comrades took cover, Barfoot knelt in the open, presenting himself as a target and waited for the tanks to come within effective range. From a distance of just 75 yards, barely more than the length of a football field, Baroot fired his first rocket. The round struck the lead tank squarely on its track assembly. The track shattered.
The massive tank ground to a halt, unable to move. The other two tanks began turning toward the flanks, seeking to outmaneuver the threat. As they moved, the crew of the disabled tank opened their hatches and attempted to escape. Barfoot dropped the bazooka, grabbed his Thompson submachine gun, and killed three German tankers before they could reach cover.
But Baroot was not finished. Leaving the disabled tank and its dead crew, he worked his way behind enemy lines, moving through the chaos of battle to reach a German artillery position. Using explosive charges, he destroyed an artillery piece that had been firing on American troops. On his way back to American lines, Barfoot encountered two wounded American soldiers.
Despite being alone in territory still contested by German forces, he helped both wounded men back to safety, carrying and supporting them over 1700 ft of dangerous ground. For his actions that day, Vanbaroot received the Medal of Honor, the highest award for valor that the United States can bestow. His citation emphasized his courage in facing tanks with a bazooka, a weapon that required getting within killing range of vehicles that could destroy a man with a single round.
Baroot’s story was remarkable, but not unique. Multiple American soldiers and marines received the Medal of Honor during World War II, specifically for courage in using bazookas against enemy forces. The weapon had made tank hunting possible for individual soldiers, but it remained extraordinarily dangerous work.
Among American infantry, assignment to a bazooka team was widely known as Medal of Honor work. The term contained both admiration and grim humor. Everyone understood that earning a Medal of Honor often meant dying in the attempt. Bazooka teams had to get close to their targets.
They had to expose themselves to return fire. They had to hold their positions while multi-tonon armored vehicles bore down on them. Casualties among bazooka teams were severe throughout the war. The weapon gave infantry a chance against armor, but it was a chance paid for in blood. For every tank destroyed, soldiers died. Yet volunteers for bazooka duty never ran short.
Soldiers understood the mathematics of their situation. Without anti-tank weapons, infantry was helpless against armor. A company without bazookas that encountered enemy tanks would be massacred. The bazooka gave soldiers the ability to fight back, to defend themselves, to have some chance of surviving an armored attack. Staff Sergeant Isidor Jakman of the 513th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 17th Airborne Division, demonstrated the courage that bazooka duty required during the Battle of the Bulge.
On January 4th, 1945, near the Belgian town of Flamier, Jacman’s company was pinned down by German artillery, mortar, and small arms fire. Then two German tanks appeared and attacked, inflicting heavy casualties among the exposed paratroopers. Jakman watched his comrades being killed and wounded around him.
The tanks were methodically destroying his company. Without anti-tank weapons in position, the paratroopers had no way to fight back. Without hesitation, Jakman left his covered position and dashed across open ground through a hail of fire. He grabbed a bazooka from a fallen comrade and ammunition from another soldier. Then he advanced directly toward the attacking tanks.
The tanks concentrated their fire on him. Machine gun rounds tore up the ground around his feet. The tank main guns swung toward this single soldier, running at them with a tube on his shoulder. Any reasonable calculation said he should have died in the first seconds of his charge, but Jackman kept running.
He reached effective range, aimed, and fired. His rocket struck the first tank and damaged it enough to force it to withdraw. The second tank, seeing what had happened to its partner, also pulled back. Staff Sergeant Jackman was mortally wounded during this action. He died shortly after saving his company from destruction.
His Medal of Honor was awarded postuously. Jakman was one of only three Jewish American soldiers to receive the Medal of Honor during World War II. At least six of his aunts and uncles had perished in the Holocaust. He had volunteered for the paratroopers specifically because he wanted to fight the Nazis.
In his final moments, armed with nothing but a bazooka and extraordinary courage, he had stopped German tanks from killing his fellow soldiers. By the end of 1945, American factories had produced 476,628 bazookas of all types along with over 15 million rockets. This massive production effort involved multiple manufacturers beyond General Electric.
The Cheney Bigalow Wire Works and Conductron Corporation joined the production effort as demand increased. Ammunition production was equally vast with factories working around the clock to supply the millions of rockets that American forces consumed in combat. The weapon had been distributed to every major Allied nation through the lend lease program and direct military aid.
Free French forces received over 11,000 launchers, using them to equip resistance fighters and regular army units alike. Britain received thousands more, though approximately 1,500 were redistributed to the French resistance, and British forces often preferred their own PR weapon for specific tactical situations.
The Soviet Union received 3,000 bazookas, though Soviet military doctrine preferred the heavier anti-tank rifles and regarded the bazooka as insufficiently powerful against German armor. Smaller Allied nations also received bazookas. Brazil received approximately 2900 launchers. China received about 2,000 for use against Japanese forces.
Canadian forces received a smaller allocation of approximately 170 units, supplementing their own anti-tank capabilities. The weapon became truly global, fighting in every theater of the war. The industrial achievement was remarkable. In May of 1942, the bazooka did not exist as a production weapon. By the end of the war, nearly half a million had been manufactured along with enough ammunition to supply years of intensive combat.
American industry had taken a prototype built from scrap and turned it into one of the most widely produced weapons of the war. General Dwight Eisenhower reflecting on the war after victory identified several pieces of equipment as vital to Allied success. In his memoir Crusade in Europe, he listed the bulldozer, the jeep, the 2 and 1/2ton truck, and the C47 airplane as items that senior officers regarded as among the most important to victory in Africa and Europe.
The bazooka, while not on that specific list, earned similar praise from commanders throughout the war for transforming infantry capability against armor. It was remarkable recognition for a weapon that had been developed in a matter of weeks by two officers working in a small workshop with virtually no budget. Lieutenant Colonel Edward Ul, the young engineer who had spotted the tube in the scrap pile, went on to a distinguished career after the war.
He rose to senior positions in the aerospace industry, eventually becoming president and chairman of Fairchild Industries. In that role, he oversaw development and production of the A-10 Thunderbolt 2 aircraft, a modern tank killing platform that continued the mission he had helped pioneer with the Bazooka. Ool died in 2010 at the age of 92.
Remembered as the father of the bazooka, Colonel Leslie Skinner, who had risen through the ranks during the war, continued his army career afterward, working on rocket weapons development. His work contributed to the guided missiles and portable rockets that would equip American forces in the decades that followed.
He died in 1978, largely unknown outside military circles, despite having helped create one of the most influential weapons of the 20th century. The bazooka itself continued to evolve. The original 60 mm weapon was replaced by the M20 super bazooka with its larger 89 mm warhead. When American forces faced Soviet-built T34 tanks in Korea, the original World War II bazookas proved inadequate against the heavier armor.
The super bazooka had to be rushed to the front to give infantry a fighting chance. But the fundamental principle that Skinner and Ul proved in 1942 remained valid and remains valid today. A single soldier properly equipped can destroy a tank. That revolution in infantry capability continues through every generation of portable anti-armour weapons.
From the Dragon missile to the Javelin to systems not yet deployed, German tank crews who faced bazookas in Sicily, Italy, France, and Germany learned lessons that armored forces have relearned in every war since. Tanks are not invulnerable. Heavy armor does not guarantee survival. Infantry equipped with the right weapons can fight back against any armored vehicle.
German veterans who wrote memoirs after the war frequently mentioned the bazooka and similar weapons as a constant source of fear. One tank commander wrote that by 1944 his crews never felt truly safe, even buttoned up inside their armored vehicles. Every building could hide a soldier with a rocket. Every hedge could conceal an ambush.
The psychological security that tanks had provided at the beginning of the war had evaporated. That transformation from invulnerable war machine to vulnerable target began in a scrap pile at an American proving ground when a young lieutenant noticed a discarded tube and had an idea. That is how innovation happens in war.
Not always through committees or lengthy development programs. Sometimes through urgent necessity, two officers in a workshop, one insight from a scrap pile and 30 days of frantic production. That combination of need, creativity, and industrial capacity changed the balance of power between infantry and armor forever.
If you found this story compelling, please take a moment to like this video. It helps us share more forgotten stories from the Second World War. Subscribe to stay connected with these untold histories. Each one matters. Each one deserves to be remembered. Leave a comment below telling us where you are watching from. Our community spans from Texas to Tasmania.
From veterans to history enthusiasts, you are part of something special here. Thank you for watching. Thank you for keeping these stories alive.
