Mr. DeJohn: I read a quick review of your book. The reviewer said you posited that the cause of the high burn rate of early Sherman tanks was due to gasoline engines vs. the less flammable Diesel engines. Is that so?

I thought that myth was put to bed a while ago.

That would be an embarrassingly bad misake if true.

From a purely US view...yes, but this is a discussion about a specific TANK, and not a specific ARMY. Most British and Canadian tanks were Shermans, and they encountered all the heavy (and some medium) tank (and tank destroyer) battalions in Normandy, which included Panthers, Tiger l's, Tiger ll's, and Jagdpanthers. One example: Willy Fey in Tiger 134 is accredited with 15 Sherman kills in one day's work, on Aug 7, 1944, near Chenedolle, Normandy, before having to withdraw due to lack of ammo. But this is just one incident in which conditions favoured the Tiger. I would not have wanted to be one of those 15 Shermans.

A claim that has no evidence to confirm it at all. The Unit that he says lost the Shermans was not even in action that day. Fiction.

Among the more bizarre online criticisms of our best-selling book "For Want Of A Gun: The Sherman Tank Scandal of WWII" is the claim that the Sherman tank- which often burned when hit- couldn't have been nicknamed a "Ronson," after the cigarette lighter that "lights every time."

The online haters and armchair quarterbacks are attacking the book by claiming that no GI, Tommy, German soldier, etc., could have used this slogan, because (they claim) Ronson advertisements didn't use it until the 1970s.

In less than 30 seconds, you can Google a Ronson cigarette ad from the Saturday Evening Post. Notice the slogan "Light Every Time." The date? 1927!! So by 1945, Allied and Axis soldiers would have familiar with this slogan for almost two decades.

Our book has over 1300 footnotes, extensively referenced- each individual chapter has more footnotes than most entire tank books. But why let facts get in the way of a good hate, right?

Sir,

Have you looked into the M4E4 project which was dated 1942 where the M1 76mm Gun was fitted in the M4 Turret and was rejected by Armor Board for unfightable, or the attempt to put the 3in at gun on the Sherman hull? Ordnance was looking with guidance from Armored Force to put an AT Gun on the Sherman from the beginning.

The US army wanted to put the 76mm gun on the DV M4A1 in 1942. Was rejected due to the insufficanties of the 75mm turret