Chapter 2

Ira, whose real name was Iris, her father, Issac, and her younger brother Nathan were in the shop replacing the stock engine with the modified six hundred horsepower engine. It was twelve thirty in the morning on Friday night, or Saturday morning and they had been working for three hours. They had at least another hour of work before they could test out that new power plant and start breaking it in. Issac wanted to get at least one hundred hours on the engine before the tank and its crew would be shipped to Europe, most likely to Antwerp, Belgium.

Lieutenant Franklin and I walked into the shop to check on the progress of the changeover. What we found was that the family was taking a break somewhere. We looked around, but they weren’t in the shop. We kept looking and found a door that was closed, it was a small break room that had vending machines and tables with folding chairs. There we found the three of them, Iris was naked on her back on top of a table, her head was off one edge and her father’s cock was embedded deep in his daughter’s throat. Her brother had her legs on his shoulders as he fucked her pussy. She was loving it, spasms of orgasm rippled through her body like she had grabbed a live 240 volt wire while standing in a foot of water. Her muffled screams of passion filled the room and made me instantly hard as a bowling pin.

Her father filled her mouth with his spend, she visibly swallowed twice. As her brother showed signs of doing the same thing, she slipped off of his cock and turned around one hundred eighty degrees and took his cock in her mouth just as he erupted into her mouth. She swallowed three times then gave the both of us a look that was similar to the look a cat gives a canary just before bouncing.

But she already had us primed, she orchestrated our positions like a general laying out the order of battle for his battalion. First she dropped the Lieutenant’s pants and underwear then she made sure his dick was hard and wet by taking it in her mouth and sucking it while moving her lips over it several times. Then she did the same for me. She had the Lieutenant lay down on the table top, then guided his cock into her pussy. Motioning to me she spit on the ends of her index and middle fingers and massaged the spit into her butthole. My target was suitably identified by her actions. I climbed onto the table and zeroed in on the target, thrusting into it with some effort. It was the first time I’ve ever been in that particular orifice, it was tighter than I had imagined. At the same time I could feel the Lieutenant’s cock through the membranes, as he began moving in and out. I moved in counterpoint to him, as he moved in, I moved out. We kept this up, becoming more forceful and faster as we became accustomed to the rhythm. She couldn’t stay still and moved to make our pleasure even greater.

Her brother had been watching us pounding into his sister and became hard again, he stood on the table and grabbed her head guiding his dick to her mouth. She sucked it as he forced it into her throat. Her tongue moved over it as she supplied suction to it as it went in and out.

Her father watched for a bit, then went back to work on our tank. Iris was insatiable, she kept us going as she had multiple orgasms, then after what seemed like forty minutes everyone had simultaneous orgasms, and we collapsed in a heap of sweaty totally satisfied bodies.

Issac woke us, it was six thirty! He had finished the installation and was ready to start the engine for the first time. We took turns cleaning up in the tiny bathroom. Once everyone was dressed we quickly cleaned up the table and opened the main doors to air out the brothel smell. Less than ten minutes later our other team members started coming into the shop to see what we were doing. I told them that we had decided on a name and were about to paint it on the tank. Of course everyone looked at me puzzled, because we had never discussed a name. I wrote it on a piece of white paper in block letters similar to what the stencil machine would produce...

IRIS’S REVENGE

Both of them simultaneously said “Who is Iris?”

“Iris is a beautiful Jewish girl I know and love more than a little, this is to honor her, and her religion! It’s exactly what and why we are fighting this war!” I told them.

I noticed a tear come to Ira’s face. Both guys nodded and agreed that it was a good name! They went to the stencil machine and made the stencils, then using rubber cement they stuck the stencils onto the turret, after measuring to get them close to the same place on both sides. They removed excess glue then using a paint roller they rolled white automotive paint over the stencil. They let it dry and repeated the process three times. Ralph, our co-driver made some other stencils cutting them out with a razor blade. These along with the name stencils and can of paint were placed in a storage box in the tank.

Everyone took their places in the tank, Ira pulled the choke out and hit the starter, the engine turned over and immediately started. The sound was very different from the stock engine, the cam produced a loping sound, it sounded as if it was a caged beast ready to be let loose on the world. Ira pushed the choke to full open, the sound changed a little bit, if anything it sounded more ferocious. He advanced the throttle and the loping went away, replaced by a throaty roar. He was careful to keep the RPMs under two thousand. The normal vibrations we would feel coming from the engine were gone. The Lieutenant exited the tank and filled a glass with water, he placed it on the engine. There wasn’t a single ripple in the water, it stayed absolutely smooth.

Climbing back into the turret, using the intercom he told Ira to move out. Ira put into first gear, lowered the RPMs and released the clutch gradually. The clutch engaged and he pressed on the accelerator pedal, both tracks spun on the concrete floor! The entire crew gasped, this was definitely different, and this was only using about twenty percent of the RPMs that Issac thought the engine would be able to turn. He estimated that it would turn ten thousand RPMs without any problems and in top gear it might reach forty MPH! Almost twice what its top speed had been.

Ira drove for ten hours, varying the RPMs and speed, “he” found the tank to be much more responsive and quick. While he drove, the rest of the team practiced loading, acquisition, and gunnery skills. We repeated this routine for two weeks gradually increasing the engine speed allowed.

At the end of the tenth day Issac drained the oil and removed the oil pan and filter. He examined the oil using a borrowed microscope, he was checking to see what the volume of iron particles suspended in the oil was. This was an indication of wear. He removed the strong magnet he had placed in the bottom of the pan and cleaned it. He also cut the oil filter in half and examined it for particles of iron. Satisfied he replaced the filter and oil filters with new ones.

Ira complained to her father that the transmission linkage was loose and sloppy. He and Nathan rebuilt the linkage using larger diameter rods and roller or ball bearings rather than bushings. They also replaced the mechanical tachometer with an electric one that redlined at ten thousand RPM. And an electromechanical speedometer that went up to fifty miles per hour, the original mechanical speedometer only went to thirty MPH.

Issac cleared Ira to let the beast loose on the world to see what she could do! The difference was amazing, shifts were smooth and without the occasional grinding of gears. Ira made note of the RPM that facilitated the best transfer of each range of gears. He practiced changing gears, over and over until he could hear each shift point and not have to look at the tachometer.

He/she complained to her father about the clutch linkage, he replaced it with a much more responsive hydraulic system. More practice.

Lieutenant Franklin asked Issac if there was any way to increase the traverse speed of the turret. The way he came up with was to change the gear ratio and change the electric motor to one with more horsepower. He machined a larger diameter drive gear and put it on a diesel engine starter motor. It increased the three hundred and sixty degree traverse speed from fifteen seconds to ten.

We continued to practice, Ira, no longer in the break-in regime, was able to see what the tank could do. The top speed was now forty four MPH on the highway, and averaged thirty eight cross country. Ira, now driving the hot rod of tanks could make it turn on a dime, bring it to a stop and reverse direction in seconds, and make both tracks spin in dry ground startup’s.

The gun crew could fire twenty one rounds a minute and hit a target nineteen times out of twenty at fifteen hundred yards. But as fast as they were, as up-armored as it was, Iris’s Revenge was still vulnerable. In a team meeting Lieutenant Franklin asked a pivotal question.

“What can we do to make it safer for us to close in on a King Tiger tank?”

For an hour they discussed different ideas. Then Leroy said,

“If only we could blind them, we already know that they have less vision range through their periscopes than we have. What if we could reduce that even further, blind them, force them to expose themselves to our machine guns. Giving us time to use our speed to close the distance to point blank distance without getting ourselves blown up!”

They all thought about what he had said, it made so much sense, there had to be a way to blind them! Suddenly Ira blurted out,

“Paint! Paint would cover the lenses of their optics forcing them to open hatches to try and see, or clean the lens!”

Ralph said, “What if we placed paint in the shell rather than explosives?”

I said, “Great job everyone, let’s try it!”

The next day we did just that, we carefully removed the trigger and explosives from a shell and poured in paint. It would only hold just over half a gallon though, was that enough? We did that to two more rounds with different colors of paint, black, red, and green. Then we took them onto the proving grounds and tried it out on a wrecked Sherman tank.

The next problem was where to hit the tank so that all of the view ports were covered! Those of the driver and the gunner and tank commander. We would just have to see what happened!

Our first shot hit the front glacis, the paint became a cloud of fine droplets that enveloped the tank. When we examined the view ports they were all covered completely. The next one we targeted the front of the turret. It also created a cloud that enveloped the tank, but a slight wind had blown the cloud away from the front of the tank. When we inspected the view ports the turret ports were all covered, but the driver’s periscope was only partially covered. But that wasn’t a problem, the driver couldn’t aim the gun, so that was still acceptable. Still, completely blinding them was the goal. We shot the last one at the glacis but to the right side, it still produced a cloud that adequately covered all of the ports. As far as color, it really didn’t matter, black occluded all of the light, but green and red could be looked through either.

It was getting very close to the departure date, in fact it was our last weekend! Ira’s family decided to throw a party at their house. The entire crew was invited, we drove the hour to the house. Iris’s father had his girlfriend, a widowed woman in her late twenties, arrange for some friends of hers to join us, and cook food. We arrived late Friday night around nine o’clock. Iris’s sisters, Beth who was seventeen and Ruth who was Nathan’s twin, greeted us as we piled out of the borrowed car. Leroy and Ralph were shocked when they all greeted Ira with full on French kisses, but were even more shocked when their clothes started coming off! Then to add to that shock they found out that Ira was not a man but a woman with all of the appropriate parts as her sisters exposed when they stripped off her clothes. Then they began sucking and licking her breasts and pussy. Issac greeted them with a smile and explanation that they had missed their sister. Then he stripped and told the four men that no holes were barred on the girls, as he plunged his cock into Beth’s pussy as she was eating Iris’s pussy.

The Lieutenant, Calvin or Cal, and I didn’t waste any time and shared Ruth. Cal was having his cock sucked as I started fucking her sweet pussy doggie style. Leroy and Ralph stood there with their mouths hanging open not knowing what to do. Then the fourteen year old identical twin girls Mary and Jessica came out of the house and showed them exactly what they wanted. Already naked they knelt before them and unzipped their pants, then reached in and extracted their cocks and started sucking. It didn’t take them long to come up to full speed and catch the spirit of the weekend. Nathan had come out of the house and started fucking his sister Jessica as she was sucking Leroy’s dick. It was a good thing they lived in the country and down a long driveway!

All of the girls were just like their oldest sister Iris, they all loved sex and they would have sex with anyone, girl, boy, woman, man, as well as any race, color, or religion. They had considered other animals, but rejected the idea.

By the time the weekend was over, the entire team had fucked Iris and all her sisters at least once and most of them twice. They had double teamed Iris four times and triple teamed her twice! Everyone was knackered by the time they arrived back at the base. Iris had sucked their cocks on the drive home.

As a parting gift Issac gave each of us helmets he had made; they were almost the same as the M1 standard issue helmet, but with a couple of important changes. The first was around the ears, the helmet was flared out to accept headphones more comfortably. And the second was that rather than 0.044 inch thickness, they were made from blanks that were 0.075 inch thickness. After being hot stamped into the desired shape they had the names of the crew and their Service number stamped in the back, then they were heat treated to the same standard of hardness that armor plating received. After that they received automotive primer, then flat olive drab green paint with sand sprinkled evenly over it to prevent any reflections. Inside it had the same webbing the regular helmets had. It was heavier than the standard helmet, but rather than just deflecting a 45 caliber bullet fired from a 1911 Colt automatic at point blank range. It would deflect a 30-06 caliber M1 Garand rifle bullet shot at point blank range, and it only scratched the paint! As far as the weight the men (and one woman) quickly became accustomed to it, building up their neck muscles simply by wearing them.

The tanks were loaded on a train pulled by three oil fired steam locomotives, twenty tanks were soon on their way to Charleston, South Carolina from Fort Knox, Kentucky. It was a distance of about four hundred miles by car, over mostly dirt roads. ( Author’s note: The Interstate Highway System was implemented by President Eisenhower construction began August 2, 1956, and wasn’t completed until October 14, 1992 except for I-95 - 2018, and I-70 which is still not continuous. TM) But due to the weight imitation of several bridges the railroad trip was just over six hundred miles. The crews were required to ride in passenger cars attached to the train. Further lengthening the time of the trip, the maximum speed was only twenty miles per hour, and on some of the steepest grades, it was reduced to under ten.

The crew of Iris’s Revenge were seated in one of the two passenger cars with all the other crews. It took over two days to get to the harbor to load the tanks. There weren’t any good private places to even get a blowjob, much less full on sex. If caught having sex of any form with the team’s driver, who was supposedly a man, well it was 1944...

The ship they were assigned to was not a Liberty ship. It had no guns, hidden or otherwise. When I saw this I approached the Captain, an older man, named Bertram Armstead. I introduced myself and asked him for permission to speak, “Captain, could I have just a moment of your time, Sir?”

““Yes, Sergeant! What is it?”

“Well Sir, I noticed that this isn’t a Liberty ship, and it has no armaments. No cannon, no machine guns, nothing to defend ourselves with!”

“We do have light machine guns to defend against boarding parties! But you are correct, we don’t have anything bigger.”

“Could I suggest that you could place several tanks on the deck in strategic places and remedy that situation? The tank crews could stand watches and would be able to react quickly to a U-boat if one tried a surface attack. My understanding is they like to do that when they can to save their torpedoes.”

“My concern, Sergeant, is how top heavy that would make us.”

“True, but wouldn’t the weight of the other tanks in the hold counteract that, and if you are worried about that rather than four, place two, or even one. If you placed my tank on the centerline above the keel on the highest place she’ll fit that lets us traverse the turret three hundred sixty degrees, we would be able to cover both port and starboard sides.”

“Sergeant, you have convinced me that we should make use of our cargo! But only one, they just weigh so much I’m afraid to put any more on the deck. Let’s put it on the fantail! But be forewarned, no matter where we put it, it’s gonna get salt spray on it and it’ll rust!”

“Our tank has been painted with a special paint, maybe it won’t rust!”

“Which tank is yours?”

“It’s called “Iris’s Revenge”!”

“We’ll get it placed then my welder will weld pad eyes to the deck and get it chained down tight!”

“Thank you, Captain! We’ll do our part! I’ll have my guys run an inner-phone line to the bridge. That way you can notify us if you need us!”

They placed it in the back of the ship, it wasn’t as high as I wanted, but it was on deck and away from everyone. When the welder showed up we had him put twice as many pad eyes down, explaining to him about the recoil from firing the gun. He welded three times the number he had originally thought to weld down. That was fine with us! Falling off into the Atlantic Ocean would be very fatal.

We set about devising a canvas screen that would camouflage the tank, but could be dropped quickly in order to fire. There didn’t need to be anything overhead, the Luftwaffe had been subdued and were no longer a threat, even when we came closer to Europe.

The design we came up with required four stanchions to be welded in a rectangle off the corners of the tank and outside the radius of our main gun. Pulleys in the form of a block and tackle system would lift or drop a metal frame with canvas stretched around it. A cam cleat was welded on the turret and could be released by tugging the loose end of the rope upward, dropping the canvas.

The freighter SS Empire Cameron left Charleston Harbor on Monday, October 30, 1944 at 8:30 in the morning. The fog had lifted enough that the lane markers were visible half mile away, the tug helped ease her away from the dock and get her pointed in the right direction. Under her own power, the Harbor Pilot directed the course down the ship channel past Fort Sumter and into the Atlantic Ocean. The convoy assembly point was ten miles to the northeast. They were going north from there to Halifax, Nova Scotia adding ships to the convoy from other harbors on the way. They were taking the northern route trying to avoid any storms that could become a hurricane. The colder water would kill most hurricanes, sapping the uplift of warm air. Forty U.S. and ten British destroyers and other ships were escorting the thirty one hundred and twenty four freighters, filled with vital war supplies, and twenty troop transport ships. While late in the war, there were still many German U-boats and there were no guarantees that any of the ships and their crews would reach their destinations. The convoy was bound for Liverpool, where the convoy would break apart and the ships would join other convoys, some were heading to Russia, some to different ports in Europe and still others would stay here in different ports in England.

The Cameron plugged along with the rest of the convoy which had been designated as #HX 302, the speed was based on the slowest vessel’s top speed of eight knots (9.21 MPH) going two thousand seven hundred and twenty four miles. The transit time was just over fourteen days, unless something unforeseen happened.

We mostly stayed in the tank, we would run the engine to keep warm. The Captain of the ship had fifty five gallon barrels of high test gasoline brought up when we ran low. For entertainment we found ways to have sex with Iris, oral was fairly easy, penetrative sex was more difficult, but we had time to figure it out! To say we were a close crew, was like saying sardines in a tin were friendly with one another. But we actually had more room than the other teams did in their bunks below decks. And we could breath fresh air!

We arrived off of Liverpool, England on November fifteenth, the convoy split up. Several of the ships, ours included, were going across the English Channel to Omaha Beach. On the way a U-boat surfaced and began shooting their 88mm deck gun at us. We were notified as soon as it became visible as its conning tower broke the surface. I tugged the rope off of the cleat and the canvas dropped, Ira had already started our engine to provide electrical power to the batteries. The turret lined up on the submarine as a high explosive round was shoved into the breach of our main gun. The Lieutenant did the final aiming and elevated the barrel for distance, then ordered me to fire. We actually fired before the Germans did! Our round hit their conning tower and exploded, totally wrecking the structure. The German gun crew was decimated by the shrapnel. Our second round was on the way quickly, it hit about a foot beneath the root of the conning tower, and tore a gaping hole in their pressure hull. They weren’t able to submerge at that point. The entire crew surrendered. A minesweeper picked them up and attempted to tow it into the closest port. Unfortunately waves entered through the hole in the hull and it sank below the waves after ten miles. The minesweeper had to quickly cut the tow line or they would have been dragged under too.

It turned out the harbor at Antwerp wasn’t open yet, they were still clearing mines and repairing damage the retreating Germans had caused. Instead we were to offload at one of the Mulberry Harbors, but that plan was scrapped when we found out that the American one was torn apart by a storm. Instead we were to be off loaded directly onto the beach.

Our problem was that we were stuck up on the fantail, which was almost ten feet higher than the main deck of the ship. A ramp was made so that Ira could drive down it and then down onto a floating pier and onto the beach. There was some concern about whether the floating pier would be able to handle the additional weight of our tanks. As a result the first tank was driven out of the hold with only a volunteer driver, Ira was that volunteer. He drove a different tank out of the hold and onto the first section. It definitely made the section sink lower into the water, but it held the tank. He drove it to shore and then ran back to the ship, he wasn’t going to let anyone but him drive Iris’s Revenge! We were the last tank off of the ship, we were in France! Our entire crew felt like we were still rocking with the waves for several hours until finally our inner ear caught up to the fact that we were on land. Ira drove us to a marshaling compound where we were directed to thoroughly wash our tank with fresh water, and inspect it for rust. Issac had repainted the entire tank with a better paint than was applied at the factory. As a result ours was the only tank that had zero rust. And because of that we were the first tank to be assigned as a replacement to a forward area. So much for training as a platoon, but if we were all trained in basically the same tactics, being thrust into a new one wouldn’t be a big problem.

We were assigned to the 3rd Army, which was commanded by General George S. Patton, 4th Armored Division, Company D of the 37th Tank Battalion. Our orders were to get to their present position in Metz in the Meurthe River valley south of Luxembourg. It was a distance of about three hundred miles as the crow flies, but at least four hundred miles using the French country roads. Our orders specifically stated that we were to travel only in daylight, and display the American flag to prevent misidentification by friendly air forces.

Our support group, a Supply Sergeant, mechanic and a security team, would accompany us in two deuce and a half trucks, loaded with spare parts ammunition and gasoline. Ira approached the two drivers, both were negros.

“Were you two guys involved in the Red Ball Express?”

“We both were, all eighty one days!”

“We need to get to Metz, do either of you know the best way to get there?”

“I do! I drove that route for several days during the “Ball”.”

“Then you can lead us, I’ll follow you in the tank, and the other truck will follow me. Is that alright with you guys?”

“I would rather go on ahead and wait for you, I’ll mark a map for you! It’s hard on both us and the trucks to go that far at eighteen or twenty miles per hour.”

“We won’t be going that slow, how about doing thirty five to forty MPH.”

“In a tank? You’re full of shit, white boy!”

“How much do you want to bet that I can not only do it, but get up to that speed faster than you can in your truck? How about a “C” note or is that too rich for you?”

“It’s a bet! Now how are we going to do this and when!”

“Are your trucks unloaded now?”

“Yes, but they’re loading them in an hour”

“So the race needs to be soon! Let’s measure out a distance of a quarter of a mile. Then we’ll do a side by side race, say in thirty minutes!”

“Shit, boy! A tank will be getting up to ten miles per hour in that distance!”

“Let’s find a place and lay out the distance!”

They found a wide road that was straight and flat for over a half mile. They painted a line in white paint across the road at the start and the finish a quarter of a mile away, according to the speedometer of a jeep. By that time the word had spread and a large crowd had begun to form at both ends of the track. Of course side bets were taken and held by a Sergeant everyone accepted.

The rest of the crew hid all the identification numbers and names under the new “Duck” adhesive tape, so named because it was waterproof. They didn’t want anyone to know which tank was special, especially someone who would tell the Germans!

Lieutenant Franklin stayed away but had contributed a sizable amount of the betting capital. Officers were supposed to report gambling, so it wouldn’t be good to get caught actually betting.

They met at the start line and were carefully positioned on the line, the forward most part of each vehicle was on the line. The signal to start was a white flag on a stick on the left side about one hundred feet away from the starting point. No one wanted to stand between the two vehicles for some reason. The flag person would raise the flag with his arm straight out, shoulder high for “Ready”. For “Set” the arm would go up at a forty five degree angle. Then for “Go” it would drop to the ground.

At “Ready” Ira increased the RPM’s to about three thousand. The driver of the truck did about the same. At “Set” Ira just stayed with the same, while the truck driver increased his even more. Ira hoped he didn’t drop the drive shaft, especially by breaking the front “U” joint. Iris had seen car’s launched in the air when the front of the drive shaft had dug into the road surface and brought the back of the car up!

When the flag dropped, Ira actually decreased the RPM’s a little and eased off the clutch, as soon as the clutch engaged fully he stepped on the gas, the RPM’s quickly redlined and he shifted into second, redline, third, redline, fourth, redline, fifth.

People watching couldn’t believe what they were seeing! The tank had actually spun both tracks, and seemed to almost do a wheelie! Then at every shift point it would do it again.

The truck ran through the gears but was never close to matching the speed of the tank. He couldn’t even shift gears as fast as Ira had!

Using the only option he had, the truck driver challenged,

“How do we know you reached forty miles per hour?”

“Have a jeep run with us and check!”

A jeep drove behind them as they returned to the start line. The tank actually did forty five miles per hour. The bets were distributed to the winners, the tank crew made over a thousand dollars!

To show they were good sports, the crew helped the truck drivers load the trucks. They loaded an extra four fifty five gallon drums just to be sure they had enough. Iris’s Revenge sucked the gas, a penalty for speed. They also loaded some extra paint rounds along with more HE rounds just in case.

Security arrived in their own transportation, a half track with an anti tank gun and fifty caliber machine guns mounted on stanchions halfway down each side. The second truck was loaded with more gas and ammunition for their guns.