Ardennes

A Sherman tank stands at the entrance to Place Général McAuliffe in the centre of Bastogne. Most people photograph it and walk on. Look closer and you find two holes in the armour, both still open. One is a clean punch through the left side, made by a German 75mm armour-piercing round. The other, in the rear, is jagged and torn, the work of a Panzerfaust. Four of the five men inside survived the war. Two of them came close to being shot after the fighting was over. The tank is an M4A3(75)W Sherman, serial S48935, named Barracuda by its…