Before dawn I woke, shivering with cold. I had never been so cold in my life. While it was still dark, the bugle sounded reveille. We dressed as close to the heat as we could, then fell out under the frosty stars and were shoved and commanded by the sergeants into the semblance of a company formation.

We were given instruction in tank driving. The idea was simple. You pulled on a lever that braked one track; the other track would keep going and the tank would lurch in the braked direction. The farm boys, fresh from tractors, had…