Rhino Tanks and Sticky Bombs Volume 79 : GI Ingenuity in World War II

Coming of age during the Great Depression, the American boys who fought in World War II had, through necessity, developed a unique brand of technological resourcefulness.This proficiency, Robert P. Wettemann Jr. contends, provided GIs with another weapon in a distinctly American way of war.Rhino Tanks and Sticky Bombs is Wettemann’s eminently readable account of how this hard-won “use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without” mentality was critical to America’s success, giving servicemen the know-how and can-do spirit to creatively engineer solutions to wartime problems. More than all the other soldiers in the conflict, American servicemen grew up in a society where the machine was ubiquitous-where enduring an unparalleled period of financial distress meant learning to keep their Model Ts, Fordson tractors, or other machinery operational.Wettemann describes how this tinkerer’s mentality promoted a technical aptitude and willingness to adapt unmatched by other armies fielded during