The Tiger Hunt

In the crucial final year of World War II, the spearhead leader of a third U.S. Army, General George S. Tappen, Jr. stood on top of a half-track near the battlefield of Hovihi, France. Looked around them at 800 Negro tankers of the 761st Tank Battalion, and said...

Men, you're the first Negro tankers ever to fight the American Army. But I ask for the send you here for only one reason. They sent you with the hardest driving, hardest shooting tankers in the state.

I don't care what colour you are, so long as you live up to that reputation, which happens to be mine too. I have nothing but the best in my army. Your tank will be expected to take everything up to Gary's castle.

That's all I've got to say. Now get your tank and come out fighting. Destination Freedom. Destination Freedom, dramatization of the great democratic traditions of the Negro people, is brought to you by station WMAQ as a part of the pageant of history and of America's own destination freedom. In a chapter entitled The Tiger Hunt, Destination Freedom tells a

part of the story of the 761st Tank Battalion through the eyes of one of its heroes. And so you rode and fought up all the hills from France to Guarring's marble chasm. And your tank had rolled over Nazis unnumbered and your gunners had torn up 30 times.

Then you rode up the slope to Gary's Castle, not in your Sherman tank, but on a medic stretcher. Your gunner and your driver were up ahead digging in grave in the castle yard. When they brought you off on the stretcher, your gunner stopped digging and spoke to you.