Dad's Wild Ride: To Hellcat and Back

I built this 1/35-scale diorama about 15 years ago in honor of my father for his service during World War II. His tank destroyer battalion was attached to U. S. Gen. George S. Patton as he raced from Normandy to Germany. 

Before I required bifocals, I used to compete in various contests held during model shows throughout the Midwest. I never won any major awards, but I enjoyed participating. I specialized in military vehicles.

When two manufactures introduced kits of the M18 Hellcat tank destroyer, the vehicle he drove across Belgium and into Germany, I couldn't resist building one. To take it a step further, I decided to depict a day in the life of an American tank crew in late 1944 through a diorama.

To add some humor, I portrayed the crew asking an infantryman for directions to the front. My mother always said he could get lost on his way out of the garage. 

The Hellcat was fast, agile and well armed when it was introduced in 1943. It was designed to at least challenge Germany's formidable Panther and Tiger tanks. Not by frontal assault, but by playing a dangerous game of cat and  mouse. It was called "shoot and scoot."

It's speed gave it a chance to, hopefully, maneuver behind the German tanks and fire shells into their vulnerable, less armored rear. This was to be accomplished by a team of 

tanks, keeping the Germans occupied while the Hellcats found a way to get behind them. They were still no match in a one-on-one confrontation with the more heavily armored German tanks. They had to shoot and get away fast or risk being destroyed by return fire if they failed to score a hit.

However, dad says they were more often used as mobile artillery, in support of the advancing infantry. He, gratefully, never had to play cat and mouse. Actually, more German tanks were lost to mechanical breakdowns and American bombings than in combat from Normandy to Germany.

The Hellcat was manufactured by the Buick Division of General Motors and was propelled by a radial engine.

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