Joe Ekins (15 July 1923 – 1 February 2012) was a World War II British Army veteran. He gained recognition for his action as a tank gunner in France in which he destroyed four tanks in a day, including three Tigers. One of his opponents on that day, 8 August 1944 near St. Aignan de Cramesnil, France may have been the German tank commander, Michael Wittmann, the 4th top scoring tank ace in history, However, in recent years it has been claimed that Sherman Fireflies from the Canadian Sherbrooke Fusiliers Regiment were the actual killers of Wittmann. Ekins died on 1 February 2012.
Read more about Joe Ekins: Operation Totalize, Controversy Surrounding Wittmann’s Death, Later Life, Footnotes
Famous quotes containing the word joe:
“While we were thus engaged in the twilight, we heard faintly, from far down the stream, what sounded like two strokes of a woodchopper’s axe, echoing dully through the grim solitude.... When we told Joe of this, he exclaimed, “By George, I’ll bet that was a moose! They make a noise like that.” These sounds affected us strangely, and by their very resemblance to a familiar one, where they probably had so different an origin, enhanced the impression of solitude and wildness.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)