In May 1943 a self-described "really young, green, ignorant lieutenant" assumed command of a new Marine Corps company. His even younger enlisted Marines were learning to use an untested weapon, the M4A2 "Sherman" medium tank.

In this unique study Oscar Gilbert and Romain Cansiere use official documents, memoirs, interviews with veterans, as well as personal and aerial photographs to follow Charlie Company from its formation, and trace the movement, action--and loss--of individual tanks in this horrific four-day struggle. It is a story of escapes from drowning tanks, and e