Breakout: Heroes of the 82nd Airborne Book 3

By Eric Meyer and Todd McLeod

American armor has stormed ashore on the Normandy beaches, heading south and west, to meet and defeat the Nazi hordes. Not everything goes to plan, and part of 2nd Armored Division is cut off when a German heavy Panzer unit pierces their lines during the night. They are trapped and facing extermination by a company of Panthers the newest and most lethal tank in the theatre of war.

A way must be found for them to escape the trap, and First platoon, Company B, 82nd Airborne, is chosen for their already proven fighting skills. They battle hard to reach Coutances, the last know position of the trapped armor, past the prepared ambushes, minefields and booby traps left by the Germans. Until they reach the beleaguered troops outside Coutances, expecting the worse at the hands of the Nazis desperate to use any means to harry and kill the Americans to halt the advance.

The battle to get them out and back behind friendly lines begins. A battle they have no right to win. Until these troopers take on the enemy on their own terms. Led by a confident, arrogant SS tank commander, who expects an easy victory. A Nazi who has yet to face the tough, fighting men of 82nd Airborne.
Heroes of the 82nd Airborne Book 3 – Breakout is the third shortread fiction set during the Second World War. The book is a collaboration between Todd McLeod and Eric Meyer, the bestselling author of more than fifty war novels.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Swordworks Books
• Release date: Oct 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005160555

Eric Meyer

An internationally recognized expert on the subjects of HTML, CSS, and Web standards, Eric has been working on the web since late 1993. He is the founder of Complex Spiral Consulting, a co-founder of the microformats movement, and co-founder (with Jeffrey Zeldman) of An Event Apart, the design conference series for people who make web sites. Beginning in early 1994, Eric was the campus Web coordinator for Case Western Reserve University, where he authored a widely acclaimed series of three HTML tutorials and was project lead for the online version of the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History combined with the Dictionary of Cleveland Biography, the first example of an encyclopedia of urban history being fully and freely published on the Web.

Book preview

Breakout

By Todd McLeod & Eric Meyer

BOOK 3 of the Heroes of the 82nd Airborne series

Short Fiction

Copyright 2020 by Todd McLeod & Eric Meyer

Published by Swordworks Books

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

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Chapter One

Sergeant Scott Cornwell, young for an NCO in charge of an armored vehicle, flinched as a shell burst overhead, scattering hot metal fragments around the cramped compartment of the M10 tank destroyer. Cornwell was a big man, heavily muscled, a longshoreman before they drafted him into an armored division. With hands like spades, his career on the docks built him a tough physique, and the quiet confidence of a man who is seldom intimidated by other men. Especially Germans. The war was a rude interruption to his life and dragged him away from his wife and two boys back home. He wanted to get back to them as quickly as possible. That meant killing Germans, lots of Germans.

He wasn’t too sure about the M10 tank destroyer. Built on the chassis of the Sherman M4 medium tank, the M10 suffered from a serious disadvantage. The three-inch gun was up against the newer German tanks, like the Panthers and the Tigers, and their shells frequently bounced off the heavy armor. As if that wasn’t enough, the geniuses in Washington had specified a fully rotating turret, a novel feature in a tank destroyer, but left it open. It meant the crew had superior all-round vision, but they were prey to snipers and grenade attacks. Already his company had lost five vehicles to enemy attacks, and crews of the surviving tanks took more casualties than was healthy.

Three weeks after the D-Day landings, 2nd Armored Division was driving through the night, heading toward Coutances. Headquarters had warned them to keep their eyes skinned for enemy armor, especially the M10s, who they expected to take care of the panzers, and if the three-inch guns weren’t up to it, too bad. They’d have to get closer and fire more shells.

Great. As