Cobra King

“First in Bastogne”

Giving an unofficial nickname to your vehicle has a long history among tankers and bomber crews, and the U.S. Army of World War II was certainly full of interestingly named tanks. It would seem, however, that far fewer tanks are remembered by name than planes. One of the exceptions, and arguably the most famous American tank of the war, was Cobra King, the Sherman that was “first in Bastogne” to relieve the town’s besieged defenders during the Battle of the Bulge. 

The Jumbo Sherman

Cobra King was a Sherman M4A3E2 assault tank variant, popularly known by its post-war nickname “Jumbo Sherman,” a moniker possibly invented by a toy company. The Jumbo was a modification of the ubiquitous Sherman tank (The M4 Sherman), designed via an expedited process to quickly give the troops something that could resist shots from the dreaded 8.8 cm gun of the Tiger I (Tiger I). The tank’s upper hull front and side armor was thickened by an extra 1½” (38 mm), to a new thickness of 4” (101 mm) and 3” (76 mm), respectively. This made the frontal armor slightly thicker than that of the Tiger I’s, and significantly thicker when considering effective thickness thanks to sloped armor. Concrete applique or sandbags were often added to the front on the field for even more protection.

The Jumbo also had a new, more massive turret with thick armor and enough internal space to house the high-velocity 76 mm gun; most Jumbos, however, retained the older 75 mm gun, as it was considered more effective against the sort of targets they would often go up against. The extra weight, however, reduced the top speed to 22 mph (35 km/h) and put a great deal of stress on the suspension. The tracks had to be widened by “duckbill” connectors to increase contact surface and reduce ground pressure. 

Jumbo Shermans were typically used to lead formations and spearhead assaults against enemy fortifications and strongpoints. A total of 254 were built, less than 1% of all Shermans.

Cobra King’s early career

Cobra King was issued to Company C, 37th Tank Battalion, 4th Armored Division on October 24 or 25, 1944. (Its nickname begins with “C” to mark it as belonging to Company C.) The Battalion was under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Creighton Abrams, future commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army and namesake of the M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank. Cobra King was assigned as the company commander’s vehicle, and served five commanders until its loss.

Many details of Cobra King’s career are lost, but a few details prior to the Battle of the Bulge remain. It took a hit to the final drive assembly near Fontenay, France on November 7, 1944, which disabled the tank and left a permanent scar on the armor. On December 23, the tank’s commander, Charles Trover, was killed by a sniper while he was standing in the turret. He was replaced by Lieutenant Charles Boggess, who would command the tank and the company during the Battle of the Bulge.

In the famous battle, the Belgian town of Bastogne became the site of heavy fighting. Sitting on a confluence of roads and railroads, Bastogne was a critical target for the Germans; as long as the town was in Allied hands, German troops advancing with minimal fuel were forced to use slow, low-quality roads on their push westwards. Allied forces, most famously the 101st Airborne Division (The Screaming Eagles) but also other units, were moved to Bastogne at the last moment. Unprepared for the fight, they were poorly equipped for the job, soon surrounded by the enemy, and pressed hard on all sides. General McAuliffe’s (The man who said “Nuts!”) famous “Nuts!” reply to a German surrender demand (To the German commander: NUTS!) spoke to the defenders’ high spirits, but they were still hanging on by a thread.

Fortunately, one Colonel Oscar Koch connected the dots and realized what the Germans were planning and where. Koch was the G-2 (intelligence officer) of George Patton’s (The Wars of George S. Patton) Third Army, and Patton heeded Koch’s warning. Once the Battle of the Bulge began, Patton was ready to take his army off the frontline and move north to support Allied forces on the south side of the developing salient.

Cobra King goes to Bastogne

Company C, 37th Tank Battalion, 4th Armored Division was the spearhead of Patton’s race north, and Cobra King was at the very front. The Germans sprung a trap on the spearhead a few miles out from Bastogne. Once Cobra King and three other tanks were through, they blew some Teller mines (The Patient Weapon) behind them that knocked out a half-track (The American Half-track) and wounded several soldiers. Rather than stopping, the lead tanks sped forward, breaking through a German-held stretch of the woods.

At 4:50 pm on December 26, Cobra King had just destroyed a German bunker by the road, when Lieutenant Bogges spotted uniformed figures in the woods nearby. They wore U.S. uniforms, but Bogges had heard rumors of German saboteurs masquerading as Americans (The Griffin That Didn’t Fly), so he called out to them warily. Receiving no reply, he shouted again, prompting one man to step forward and approach the tank. He introduced himself as Lieutenant Webster of the 326th Engineers, 101st Airborne, extending his hand and adding “Glad to see you.” Cobra King, and the rest of the 3rd Army following it, had broken through to Bastogne. 

Cobra King briefly became famous, and received the legend “FIRST IN BASTOGNE” in chalk. She continued fighting in the Battle of the Bulge and the subsequent counterattack. In time, the chalk legend weathered off and once again she became just one tank of many in Company C.

Task Force Baum

Most historians agree that Cobra King stepped into the limelight once more, in March 1945, during the ill-fated mission of Task Force Baum.  Oflag XIII-B was a German prisoner-of-war camp near Hammelburg in Bavaria, Germany. In the winter of 1944, POW camps in Poland were emptied and the inmates sent to the west to prevent their liberation by the advancing Red Army. The population of Oflag XIII-B, mainly Serbs and U.S. troops captured in the Battle of the Bulge, was boosted by another 1,290 men. One of the new arrivals was one John Knight Waters, captured in February 1943 at Sidi Bou Zid in Tunesia, during the German preparatory movements for the Battle of Kasserine Pass. (The Battle of Kasserine Pass) As it happened, Waters was General Patton’s son-in-law. 

Patton publicly always denied having knowledge of Waters’s presence at the camp, but a letter he wrote to his wife at the time proves otherwise. He charged Abrams with organizing an operation that would penetrate 50 miles (80 km) behind German lines, liberate the prisoners of war and return with them. Abrams wanted a full combat command for the mission, two battalions and supporting artillery. Patton overruled him, only assigning a single medium tank company, a light tank platoon and a company of armored infantry. Captain Abraham Baum, a man known for his fearless advance and his ability to guide his men through confusing terrain, was put in command of the task force comprising 314 men and 57 vehicles. 

Task Force Baum ran into heavy enemy fire some 30 miles (48 km) from the target in the evening of March 26, losing several vehicles and only breaking through in the early morning of the 27th. The force was greatly hindered by not having enough information. There were only 17 maps to go around, they only showed the road networks but not the terrain, and the exact location of the camp was unknown. To make things worse, a German spotter plane noticed the incursion and started relaying the task force’s location to German forces in the area. Believing the incursion to be a major breakthrough attempt, the Germans started pushing everything they had towards the Americans.

Casualties started mounting, and Baum himself was wounded when the Germans blew up a bridge he was trying to cross. He eventually found an alternative round with the aid of a German paratrooper who was home on sick leave and was so tired of the war he was willing the help the Americans just to see peace.

About half of the task force was still combat capable when they reached Oflag XIII-B on the afternoon of the 27th. They wasted no time and opened fire on the grey-uniformed figures they saw in the camp. This was a tragic mistake, since the figures were Serbian prisoners of war, whose uniforms could be mistaken for German ones from a distance. The camp commandant, Major General Günther von Goeckel, summoned Waters and asked him to meet the attackers and arrange a truce. Waters agreed, and proceeded to head out of the camp towards the task force, accompanied by several other POWs and a German officer. One German guard, who was not aware of the truce attempt, thought Waters was trying to escape; he opened fire and shot him in the buttocks. Waters was quickly taken back in and a Serbian POW doctor treated his wound.

The camp eventually surrendered without Waters’s help, but Baum was now facing a new problem: rather than the roughly 300 officers he was expecting, the camp held over a thousand prisoners, mostly in terribly poor shape due to malnutrition and disease. Taking into account his vehicle losses, he concluded he could carry no more than 200 men riding on tanks and half-tracks. Senior American officers were given priority; everyone else was told they had three options: they could walk alongside the column if they could keep up, they could try to make it to Allied lines on their own, or they could stay and wait to be recaptured by the Germans. Most POWs were in such condition that they could barely walk, and chose to stay. In a case of sad irony, this included Waters, who could not be transported due to his fresh wound.

The task force left the camp at 8 pm. The way back home turned out far worse than the way in. There was no moon out that night, so the convoy had to use artificial lights for navigation, revealing their presence to the German forces that were completing their encirclement. During the night, German veterans from a nearby infantry combat school ambushed and captured a Sherman, using its radio to lure further tanks into the ambush. The task force lost four Shermans to the ruse. 

The remnants of Task Force Baum took refuge on a hill. They were running out of gas and decided to wait for first light so they wouldn’t get lost in the dark and waste precious fuel. In the morning, most of the walking wounded decided to head back to the POW camp as they had no chance of making it to Allied lines. Unknown to the task force, the Germans had surrounded them completely during the night. As soon as the vehicles started moving out, they came under fire from all directions. After a few minutes under withering fire and with no chance to break out, Baum ordered every man for himself. Of the 314 men who embarked on the mission, 35 made it back and 32 were killed at one point or another. The rest were captured. Of the 57 vehicles, all were lost. Cobra King was destroyed some time on the 27th. As far as it can be determined, it was hit by a German Panzerfaust and abandoned. There was also a fire inside, either caused by the hit, or started by the Germans later to prevent the Allies from recovering the vehicle.

Cobra King goes home

The wreckage of Cobra King was recovered in the 1950s, though its identity was not known at the time. It served as a symbolic gate guard outside a series of American military bases in Germany, the last being Rose Barracks in Vilseck, from 1993 to 2008. 

Army historians were investigating the stories of old World War II tanks left in Europe, and Army chaplain Keith Goode started suspecting that the burnt-out gate guard might actually be Cobra King. An examination of the tank’s serial number and army registration number confirmed the theory. Cobra King was shipped back to America, partially restored (but not to running condition), and found a new home at the National Museum of the United States Army at Fort Belvoir, 20 miles (32 km) from Washington, in 2017. (There’s also another Jumbo Sherman, the only one left in Europe, on display at the Bastogne Barracks Museum in Belgium. It is painted with Cobra King’s markings, including the “First in Bastogne” slogan, to honor the original Cobra King.)

If you would like to learn more about the Battle of the Bulge and the American soldiers who fought there or if you want to see the Cobra King replica in Bastogne, you can do so on our Bulge Anniversary Tours, or on our Band of Brothers Tours.