Muddy Rampage
It happened 80 years ago this week.
Official period caption: “Soldiers of the 77th Infantry Division walk past mud-clogged tanks parked by the side of the road on Okinawa. 26 May 1945.”
U.S. Signal Corps Photo SC 208600. U.S. National Archives
The “tanks” are actually one of the more rarely seen armored vehicles in American service in WWII, the M8 Scott, an early 75mm self-propelled howitzer.
Offically known as “Howitzer Motor Carriage M8,” it picked up the easier moniker in a ode to “Old Fuss n Feathers” himself, Gen.Winfield Scott– the War of 1812 vet who lead the Army during the war with Mexico and the first year of the Civil War who later passed away at West Point just shy of his 80th birthday.
The M8 HMC was an interesting stop-gap vehicle. It used the hull, engine, tracks, and guts of the M5 Stuart light tank. It then substituted the 37mm popgun and the Stuart’s tiny turret for a new open-topped turret armed with a 75mm L18 M2 or M3 howitzer—an artillery piece that was essentially just an M1 howitzer modified for use in a vehicle.
Some 1,778 Scotts were made by the Cadillac division of General Motors from September 1942 to January 1944, and they were very useful in hill fighting due to the high angle of their guns.
“Members of the 758th Light Tank Bn. (Colored) fire their 75mm howitzer in support of infantry movements on the Fifth Army front. 4 April, 1945.” SC 329839
SC 329839 758th Light Tank Bn M8 Scott April 1945 4 April, 1945
M8 Scott HMC 75 howitzer passing a knocked-out Panther
Note that this M8 HMC is named “Laxative.”
M8 troop E, 106th Cavalry Recon Group, Karlsbrunn 6 February 1945
Post-war, they were quickly withdrawn, replaced with 105mm SPGs, but they went on to serve with U.S. allies such as Mexico and the KMT Army in exile in Taiwan for another two decades. They saw particularly hard Cold War service in Vietnam, first by the French and then by the Cambodians and South Vietnamese who inherited them.
M8 Scott 75mm howitzer motor carrier, October 1950, Pingtung exercise, ROC Taiwan, KMT
May 8, 1952 – French Indochina. A 75mm M8 howitzer advances on the Lang Khe road. Ref.: TONK 52-122 R37. © Raymond Varoqui/ECPAD/Defense