An unmissable white-knuckle ride from the Kasserine pass to Anzio, Operation Dragoon to the final attacks on the Third Reich, this is the gripping story of the men and machines that took on Nazi Germany's best. This book not only reveals the technical details and origins of the 601st Tank Destroyer Battalion, it places the reader on the front lines of the European war.

As the war swung in the favor of the Allies, it became clear that no final defeat of the Third Reich would be possible until the armored monsters of the Panzerwaffe were defeated. But who would, or even could, take on the mighty Tigers and Panthers, just a handful of whom could stop entire formations in their tracks? The answer lay with the formation of a new type of unit, the Tank Destroyer Batallion. This is the story of the men and machines who made up the very first Tank Destroyer Batallion, the 601st, from their unique training and formation, to the final, desperate battles in the heart of Nazi Germany. Packed with rare material, letters, diaries and unpupublished photographs, this is an intense and intimate chronicle of the men who fought the Panzers in an astonishing 10 campaigns and 546 days of lethal combat. Re-live the excitement and terror of battling the best the Wehrmacht and SS had to offer, in every major campaign in the West.

Victor 'Tory' Failmezger is a retired US Naval Officer. In the early 1970s Commander Failmezger was stationed at NATO in Naples, Italy and lived in an apartment overlooking the Bay of Pozzuoli where the 601st conducted practice landing for both the Anzio and Southern France landings. In the early 1980s he served as the Assistant Naval Attaché in Rome, Italy. A later tour found him as the Director of the US Navy Science and Technology Group, Europe in Munich, Germany. He is a graduate of the US Foreign Service Institute (Italian) and the Defense Language Institute (German).

After retirement he worked in the private sector as a consultant helping small businesses enter new markets. He was also a government consultant do contract work for the US Department of Energy and NASA. He lives in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia with his wife Patricia. The author lives in Middletown, VA.