Shownotes Transcript
The introduction of tanks on the frontline battlefields during the First World War completely revolutionized ground warfare. They provided mobility and speed, allowing for quick advancements and flanking maneuvers, all of which was accompanied by large caliber firepower and thick armor. Essentially a close range and highly precise artillery weapon, which could easily decimate enemy machine gun nests and other fortifications.
Besides its combat efficiency as a weapon, there was also the sheer psychological impact these imposing mechanized beasts had on the enemy soldiers who found themselves fleeing their positions, abandoning everything that would slow them down in the desperate hope of escaping with their lives. While the sight of one of these metal monsters bearing down on you would terrify anyone out of their wits,
There is curiously a lesser known, possibly even more unnerving aspect of tank encounters that have been reported by many soldiers, as well as even civilians exploring battlefields long after the wars had ended.
While the actual detailed anecdotal accounts are admittedly hard to come by, it otherwise seems that reports of spectral sightings or paranormal experiences relating to tanks and military vehicles are not that uncommon in the realm of, shall we say, military folklore.
This is the Smoke Pit, and these are true stories of encounters that soldiers, Marines, and others have had with, for want of a better term, ghost tanks. I'm Luke LaManna, and this is Wartime Stories. Have you ever wondered why they call them tanks?
The Germans called them Panzers, which translates to the word "armor." The French called them "char d'assaut," which at least suggests the term "assault vehicle."
But the English term "tank" is interestingly a name that just stuck, as it was originally a name given to these vehicles during World War I by the British military to conceal their true nature as terrifying armored assault vehicles. The British referred to them as "tanks" in official documents, hoping to create the misleading impression that they were developing "mobile water storage units" or containers, in case these classified reports were intercepted by the enemy.
From there, the name "tank" just stuck, and has been widely used until today to describe tracked armored vehicles. However, as far as tanks that can appear and disappear, or move silently, or otherwise can be heard but not seen, the term "ghost tank" is not necessarily written in stone. "Phantom tanks" might be another good title.
As I mentioned, detailed anecdotal accounts of ghost tanks from eyewitnesses are hard to come by. Human ghost encounters by soldiers, sure, no problem. But when you try to research something like ghost tanks, what usually comes up are historical accounts of the American Ghost Army of World War II.
This was a top-secret operation where, during the summer of 1944, American military units fighting in Europe began using inflatable tanks and other vehicles, combined with falsified radio reports and loudspeakers that blasted tank sounds and other troop noises, all in a deceptive effort to confuse Nazi aerial reconnaissance into believing they had massive forces on the ground.
Well, that operation worked. The Nazis were fooled and it was a massive success. But of course, those inflatable tanks weren't a literal, spectral, ghost army. The point being the effort of then trying to find personal accounts of actual ghost tank encounters, which are more than likely buried in books, diaries, or other memoirs. This gets muddled up by all the documented accounts of the inflatable tank stories.
Fortunately though, the reason that there is an episode like this is that I have found a few eyewitness accounts of ghost tanks. Ghost tanks in the UK. This first account is more of a localized legend that has persisted in its telling. That of a ghost tank that has been sighted multiple times along the road from Nebworth House Lodge to Codicot in Hertfordshire, England.
The road is reportedly haunted by a Second World War tank. Motorists traveling on the road have reported seeing a spectral tank with a helmeted soldier motioning frantically to them from the open hatch before the tank then suddenly vanishes from sight. Hertfordshire was extensively bombed, not only during the Blitz campaign but during the entire period of the war from 1940 to 1945.
Perhaps this young tanker met an untimely end in that very way, while frantically attempting to warn motorists of an incoming German air raid. And then there's this next story from the Isle of Portland, 130 miles to the southwest. While walking his dog one quiet morning in May of 1976, a Mr. Murphy stated that he suddenly found himself surrounded by tanks, jeeps, and American soldiers walking around.
Then, as suddenly as they'd appeared, the scene vanished, leaving both Murphy and his dog terrified and very confused. He later speculated that he must have fleetingly witnessed soldiers making final preparations for D-Day landings. History would again indicate that, sure enough, the small tide island was used as a staging area for American troops prior to D-Day.
These two UK-based apparitions appear to resemble other incidents in the UK, where people have reported seeing and hearing things from previous points in history, something that has been called a "timeslip" or a "crossing of dimensions". The Nazi Ghost Tank of Bryansk, Russia. Alexei! Alexei, wake up! What? Wake up! What is it? Listen! Where do you hear it?
This next account was translated from an article on a Russian news website under the subheading of Science and Mysteries. The author, Dmitry Surakov, writes...
A few years ago, the so-called "black archaeologists" were extremely active. These were people conducting independent excavations at the locations of World War II battles, looking for precious war trophies. Sometimes, during their searches, they would report experiencing very strange phenomena.
Alexei, a black archaeologist who used to excavate in the woods near Bryansk, where the Russian front was located in 1942-1943, told an interesting story. He writes: "We excavated the bodies of six Russian and eleven German soldiers, four of which were Wehrmacht soldiers, in a swamp trench shelter. We cut the logs and discovered decomposed German boots with bones sticking out.
Then we began a more careful excavation and found pelvic bones, a spine, and ribs. Little by little, we dug out remnants of four people. It was getting dark. We left the skeletons at the trench and camped out on a meadow about 200 yards away. At night, something happened. We were woken up by Valera, a guy on duty. He told us that something weird was going on. We got up and started listening carefully. We could hear...
German speech, songs, laughter, and the distinct clatter of tracks. It was very scary. In the morning, we returned to the trench. It looked the same as when we left it. But when we walked a little further, we saw tank ditches and, most amazingly, fresh tank tracks. The Black Ghost of Libya.
This next story, authored by James Hay, comes from another news article. This one found on the McQuaid Jesuits online publication called The Shield. His story is one good example of how, despite these ghost tank stories being vaguely known to exist, they can be very difficult to source.
As he says, this story was told to him by his grandfather, who heard it from his father, an Australian soldier who fought in North Africa during World War II, and to whom this bizarre story was originally conveyed by a German POW that they had captured. James writes, "There are many legends, myths, and stories surrounding World War II. Some of these are missing aircraft or ships, but none of them top the relatively unknown one
of the Ghost Tank. A bit of backstory on the conflict. During the North African campaign in Libya, the UK could not allow an Italian victory in North Africa, as that would cut the UK off from its Asian and Oceanian colonies, most notably the British Raj, Australia, and New Zealand.
Commonwealth forces, shorthand for forces of the British Empire, held the border up until mid-1940. This changed, however, when the German reinforcements in the form of infantry and panzer forces, under the command of Erwin Rommel, arrived. The commonwealths were pushed back, but formed a new defensive line around the city of Tobruk. This was then broken on April 10th, 1941, when the Germans surrounded the city and besieged it.
This caused complete chaos among all the Commonwealth forces, and it is from this battle where the legend of the Ghost Tank begins. This story was told to me by my grandfather. He was told the story by my great-grandfather, who said it was later told to him by APOW.
The POW was captured during a counter-attack to try and relieve the siege at Tobruk. My great-grandfather was there, as he was in a small contingent of men from the Australian forces that was not in the siege proper. The legend goes that sometime around January, there was a small German garrison stationed on the defensive line to the east of the Egyptian desert. All of a sudden, they hear the rumbling of tank engines. Everyone jumps to their feet.
They get to the pack a T-gun and grab an anti-tank rifle they seized in a previous battle. They radio to the mortar team and fire a star shell that illuminates the enemy. They begin to aim and see all but one tank moving towards them slowly. It is different though. It's painted black. They recognize it as a Matilda and open fire. Both weapons seemingly go right through it.
They fire again and again, but the shells just go right through this mysterious tank. They radio to call in artillery, and it lands all around this tank, but again, nothing happens. Despite being shot at from all directions, it has not fired a single shot. It just keeps moving forward. The fight continues, and the Germans radio in for the quick response unit. Two squads of Panzer Grenadiers arrive and move in.
They attempt to lay satchel charges on the tank, but the charges fall right through. Then, all of a sudden, they hear a huge bang. The tank begins firing all of its guns, comprising the two machine guns and the main gun. It fires at a rapid rate while still moving, firing its main gun multiple times per second, and begins charging the garrison. It's about to run through the defenses, and then, all of a sudden, one last shot goes through it,
and all the sound stops. The garrison fires another star shell to find that it has disappeared. They gave it the name, the Black Ghost. James would go on to offer his own thoughts about the story. He stated, "This story is rather unknown, partially because of the sheer amount of history made in the North African campaign. It was a rare story to begin with and is never told today.
This is likely just a flash of imagination of some soldiers, perhaps German or perhaps Commonwealth. Probably made up, but it is still fascinating. Despite the amount of far-fetchedness as to this ghost story, I am going to say what it might have been if it is somewhat true. The tank could have been an experimental version of the Black Prince tank. This tank was a Matilda that was unmanned and instead piloted by a radio operator.
Some things are still classified from this campaign, so it's possible that this was the tank in question. It may have been equipped with an autocannon, which could explain the fast fire rate. Even granting all these things, it is unlikely it could have disappeared or vanished out of sight before the next starshell fired. No one knows where exactly this was or if it even happened.
As James said, whether fact or fiction, this story is still fascinating, if not only because it reveals that some among the warring nations of the 1930s and 40s were indeed experimenting with unmanned, radio-controlled tanks.
Reports from 1941 indicate that the Red Army was experimenting with them, calling them "teletanks" and even attempting to onboard television transmitters, which would give them remote viewing access while controlling the vehicles. If not for assaulting pillboxes and machine gun nests, then the suggestion was to use these experimental vehicles as sacrificial scouts to ferret out minefields and anti-tank weapons.
However, it's believed to be highly unlikely that these tanks ever saw actual combat. So, if not an experimental tank as James suggested, the tale of the Black Ghost lives on. Ghost Tanks on Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune This final and much more recent story takes us back across the globe to the United States, as told by a young Marine stationed on the East Coast.
It is one among many strange and unexplained stories featured in the Tales from the Grid Square books. He writes: "So I want to start this off by saying this was my second or third month in the Jacksonville, North Carolina area. I had just been stationed on Marine Corps Air Station New River, but I wanted to explore Lejeune because I knew I would have to go there from time to time to perform my duties and such.
So one night, around midnight, I get in my car and head over to Lejeune and drive around exploring and learning my way around the base. At around 0300, I decided to head back to my barracks and I plug it into my GPS. Long story short, I get lost and I end up on a long road down towards one of the base's decommissioned gates way back near Hubert.
If you've spent any time in the Onslow area on Lejeune, you know that the wee hours of the morning can get pretty foggy and it creates an overall uneasy feeling. I realize my mistake, I turn around and I start heading back the way I came. As I'm driving back, my car starts to suddenly rattle and shake. I guess that one of the artillery battalions was running a night op close by or something.
I keep going down this road and it's lined by street lights, maybe a hundred feet or more spaced apart, illuminating the street through the fog just enough. All of a sudden it felt like I was on a drawbridge and I shit you not, three tanks, vintage looking, maybe Vietnam era, come rolling from the tree line on the right about 300 feet away from me.
They travel across the road and into the tree line on the other side. They had men manning the turrets and everything. I could only make out the men from the shoulders up, but they weren't wearing our modern Kevlar helmets. Instead, it looked like they had the old GI helmets with no fabric covers on them from the way the streetlights were reflecting off of the tops.
After they passed, I immediately thought I might have accidentally ventured into a restricted part of the base, like a tank range or something. But when I finally pulled up to the part of the road where they had crossed, there were no signs of them. There was no muddy track marks on the road, and both of the tree lines were super dense. You couldn't even fit a squad of guys through there without at least hacking a few saplings down. I don't know what I saw.
but those tanks and soldiers looked like they were straight out of Vietnam. I know Camp Lejeune has some bad stuff in the water, but this story is wild.
And this one is also very reminiscent of the UK tank stories. Like this Marine had also momentarily slipped through time back to a point when the area he was driving through was a training ground for guys about to be shipped out to Vietnam. Maybe when there was no trees in that area or, you know, maybe that portion where the tanks were used to be a trail of some kind.
The unexplained shuttering of his car and the bizarre sensation of driving over a bridge that he described without offering any theories as to why that happened. They do seem to indicate some weird change in the environment, at least from his perspective. I think I know what he means, the discernible difference between driving on a road to suddenly driving on a bridge. Like the ground suddenly just went hollow beneath the car, like you can feel that.
With regard to his GPS leading him down the wrong road, I did want to confirm that this has happened to me several times. Google, I don't think, isn't allowed to drive on the military bases to map the roads. So there's no Google Street imagery, for instance. So my guess is that they mapped everything with the satellite imagery.
And a few years back on Camp Pendleton, Google Maps once took me down a dirt road. I had to go from the Pulgas area of the base over to somewhere near the flight line. There's a road that takes you over there, but I had never been to that part of the base. And so Google Maps takes me down this dirt road, which then suddenly became a very steep tank trail that I could not turn around on.
And it was I was going downhill and it was so steep. I knew at that point that if I break too hard, I was going to slide right off this embankment and then it would just roll multiple times down to the bottom of the hill. And that would probably be the end of me. And if it had been, who knows? Maybe Marines training on Pendleton at night would be saying they swore they heard a man screaming and then saw a white Honda Civic driving through the desert before suddenly disappearing.
But anyway, as for these ghost tank stories, from a rational perspective, even from someone who would at least acknowledge the existence of ghosts or spirits, the idea of an entire mechanized vehicle becoming a ghost? That does seem arguably far-fetched, like something that manifests itself not in the actual world, but only in the mind of an exhausted and battle-scarred individual.
or perhaps an entire group of men experiencing a shared psychosis, I would still say, either way, whether a literal phantom tank or a hallucination, it doesn't really make their experience any less bizarre or terrifying for them, does it?
Wartime Stories is created and hosted by me, Luke LaManna. Executive produced by Mr. Ballin, Nick Witters, and Zach Levitt. Written by Jake Howard and myself. Audio editing and sound design by me, Cole Lacascio, and Whit Lacascio. Additional editing by Davin Intag and Jordan Stidham. Research by me, Jake Howard, Evan Beamer, and Camille Callaghan.
Mixed and mastered by Brendan Cain. Production supervision by Jeremy Bone. Production coordination by Avery Siegel. Additional production support by Brooklyn Gooden. Artwork by Jessica Clarkson-Kiner, Robin Vane, and Picotta. If you'd like to get in touch or share your own story, you can email me at info at wartimestories.com. Thank you so much for listening to Wartime Stories.
