M4 Sherman with Hedgerow Cutters – Allied Medium Tank

About the M4 Sherman with Hedgerow Cutters – Allied Medium Tank:

M4 Sherman tanks churned onto the beaches with the first waves of the D-Day assault. Battering out of the confined Normandy bocage, Shermans led the Allies’ race across Europe. Fighting in every theater of the Second World War and shared extensively through Lend-Lease, the Sherman was an emblem of Allied industry, strength, and victory.

Dense hedgerows of stones, dirt, and roots crisscrossed Normandy, creating a patchwork of small fields and forests that the German defenders turned into impregnable redoubts. To bust through the hedgerows, tankers fitted their Shermans with prongs, known as Culin Hedgerow Cutters. Initially the product of battlefield ingenuity and scrap metal, the cutters so impressed General Omar Bradley that he ordered them mass-produced and fitted to tanks before they entered the battle. Using these cutters, Shermans tore holes through hedgerows and fired into the adjoining pastures, allowing the infantry to move up. The cutters increased mobility in the constrictive landscape and helped the Allies break out of the Normandy beachhead.