I had to pull a hot round once. It was not even my tank, i did it on but my wing mans. There loader was having some problems so rather than wait and get a dummy round they figured it would be a good idea to use a live round. Loaded it, it swelled and got stuck. While pulling it the af-cap came off and out spilled, oh i dont know, 40# or so of propellant. Then they had to dig out the cellulose casing and projectile from the gun tube. The next day with the battalion commander was not a fun day for the tank commander. 

That sounds like an extremely unfun thing for the tank crew Billy.

Well would you had rather be standing behind the breech as you open it up to pull a misfire?  If he had gotten the breech block open before it went off; recoil would have been much less and anyone standing behind it would have been "truncated".

I loved being a loader, even after making some rank i would volunteer to load on other tanks if we were short at gunnery. But it the most dangerous job on a tank becuase of things like unloading hot, running commo, disconnecting the mine plow under fire when it gets stuck, shaking the tree so you can find it easier on a map, etc. 

What's "running commo"?

Jiggling the handle on the commode if the tank is still running.

Tanks had a toilet? 

If not, the tankers would be discommoded.

Ha, ha.  Seriously, "commo" is short for "communications."  Billy means that in addition to being the loader he had to be the radio operator.

As an old infantry man I would pass on being a tanker.  As Willie said to Joe in a WW2 Bill Mauldin cartoon when seeing a tank go by, "No thanks, a moving foxhole attracts the eye."

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Weren't the Sherman's called Ronson Lighters?

here's a great thing on that undying,

gravity defying wonder

1 hour ago, Irondragon ForgeClay Works said:

Weren't the Sherman's called Ronson Lighters?

this is a misconception, this article explains it well on what happened

M.J.Lampert

14 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

Well would you had rather be standing behind the breech as you open it up to pull a misfire?  If he had gotten the breech block open before it went off; recoil would have been much less and anyone standing behind it would have been "truncated".

I didn't think that through did I?

Now I'm almost afraid to look at what I wrote today. 

Frosty The Lucky.

11 hours ago, George N. M. said:

moving foxhole

Ha That is what we called them also. 

Not only the radios but it was also running the wires for the field phones, but yep communications. 

11 hours ago, SinDoc said:

Tanks had a toilet?

You did not know tanks have toilets? Most folks call them MRE boxes but right up on the backside of the knees, lean our back against the skirt and you can hang over and do your business. Want to know where the water heater is on a tank? 

Somebody's gotta ask. Where?

Thank you M! You saved me from making an embarrassingly silly guess.  

I'm striving to make more sense today.

Frosty The Lucky.

Back deck. Not that odd really. The turbine exhaust comes out at around 1200*F so we would put water containers on top of where it exhausts. Always had hot water for shaving and the ...bath. 

And those grunts loved our tanks in the winter. Imagine standing behind a jet engine. You can get a warm draft off of it a good 30'. In the winter when when we would fire up to charge the batteries grunts would come out of the wood work to stand in our exhaust for a few minutes.