シャドーイング練習: The Shoemaker that Stopped the Tank Ace - 動画で英語スピーキングを学ぶ
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Summer in 1944 in France.
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The Allies are on the offensive to try and break through the German defenses south of Cannes.
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A group of British tanks sit under cover in an orchard when over the rise three Tiger tanks appear.
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Their Maybach engines roaring and the screech of their tracks can be heard in the distance.
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Back in the orchard inside one of the tanks, a Sherman Firefly sits Joe Eakins in the gunner position.
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What happens next will be analyzed for years to come.
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The tank commander orders the Sherman to come out of cover
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and a nervous Joe is ordered to fire two rounds at the rear Tiger.
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This is only the second time Joe has fired his gun and the first time in a combat situation.
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The impact of Joe's shots on this day will be fouled all the way to Berlin.
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Joe Eakins was working in a shoe factory at the age of 17
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when he volunteered to join the first Northamptonshire Yeomanry after hearing what was happening in Europe at the start of the war.
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He felt he had a moral obligation to play a part in the struggle to defeat the Germans and their ideology.
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Eakins was assigned as a gunner in a Sherman Firefly in A Squadron.
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Fireflies were Sherman tanks adapted by the British to have the powerful 17-pounder anti-tank gun fitted.
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The tank became known as the Firefly because of the bright flash it gave off from the muzzle.
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It was a hastily put together solution in order to resolve the problem of the highly effective German armour.
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Winston Churchill gave the project the highest priority.
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The Firefly could penetrate 233mm of armour at 1000m distance.
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On the downside, the recoil and the dust thrown up when it was fired was incredible.
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It would jar the crew and if fired at night, the extremely bright flash would cause night blindness if the crew didn't shut their eyes at the moment of firing.
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In Joe's squadron there were only three Fireflies and the rest of the squadron were regular Shermans.
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All the tanks were named after Russian towns in honour of the Soviet allies.
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Joe's tank was called Velikia-Luki after a Russian town where a fierce battle had been fought.
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The Fireflies had only been ready six weeks before the squadron was deployed
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and Joe had only one session on the firing range in his tank.
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During the later stages of Operation Overlord on August 8th 1944, Joe's squadron was ordered to the south of Khan.
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The squadron were dispersed in a defensive position, which left Joe under cover of the orchard with two regular Shermans.
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When three Tigers appeared in the distance, only Joe's tank was able to reach them.
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Thanks to the Tank Museum, we have permission to use this recording they made of Joe in April 2009, where we hear him describe the battle in his own words.
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We were in the orchard, under cover, looking out over a couple of thousand yards of fairly flat-line land.
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So there were three Tigers coming across our front about 1,200 yards.
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Three in line, some distance between them.
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We waited until they were about 800 yards.
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My tanker, my hunter, pulled us out of the orchard, because you had to move out to the fire.
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He said, target the rear one.
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And I fired two shots at him and then it hit him and he went on fire.
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He fired and then he got back in the cover as quick as he could.
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They were 800 yards, they were only tiny, but I could see the gun coming round, they fired at us and I don't know whether they fired two or three shots or what.
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At this point, Joe's tank was hit in the turret, but the tank was still operational.
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We'd always been told that it took five Shermans to knock out one Tiger, but I'd imagined that I'd get some help.
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We'd got two other Fireflies in the squadron because the ordinary Sherman at 300 yards could perhaps do a bit of damage,
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but 800 yards just bounced off.
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I realised our army had it.
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So we pulled out anyway again and fired at the second tank, hit him with the first shot and went up in an explosion.
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So obviously we hit the ammunition or something.
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By this time, the first tank of the three realised, I think, what was going on.
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And he was starting milling around looking for cover, so he turned a bit towards us.
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We pulled out and fired two shots at him and hit him as well.
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And he went up and I thought, thank God, it's not going to be us today.
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We pulled back again into the orchard and sat and shook.
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Relieved, you know, you were frightened, but you know what you could do?
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I need to go and do it, what else could you do?
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A certain amount of exile, I suppose.
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If you couldn't run anywhere, they would have nowhere to run.
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In just 12 minutes, Joe had taken out three Tigers.
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Unbeknownst to Joe, inside one of the tanks destroyed that day had been the Black Baron, Michael Widman.
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Widman was a household name in Germany and a cult figure as a Panzerace.
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He was one of the most successful tank commanders ever and was credited with destroying an incredible 138 tanks.
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After this incident and despite his expert shooting, Joe was assigned to be a radio operator for the rest of the war.
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He was baffled as to why he was put in this role.
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In 1945 Joe left the army due to illness.
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He went back to the shoe factory and married Gwen, his sweetheart, in 1946 in 1996.
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They had children and he rose to be a manager at several shoe factories.
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Due to the importance and notoriety of Whitman, after the war there were several claims as to who had destroyed the Black Baron's tank.
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The 4th Canadian Armoured Division, later the 1st Polish Armoured Division made a claim, and the 144th Regiment Royal Armoured Corps also claimed credit.
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The RAF claimed a rocket fired from a Hawker Typhoon from the 2nd Tactical Air Force hit Whitman's tank.
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But eight years after the battle, Joe Eakins was told by historians that it was most likely
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that he had taken down the Black Baron in the second of the three tanks he had shot.
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His comrades convinced him that he should come forward and speak about the battle, particularly as others were claiming that they had brought down the Black Baron.
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Eventually Joe conceded and spoke to the Tank Museum and the press about his part.
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Even then, Joe was characteristically modest about the whole thing, saying, in a battlefield, I don't think anyone can really be 100% certain what happened,
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but most historians now seem pretty sure it was me.
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In 1988 he retired.
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He held a black belt in judo and was given the Queen's Jubilee Medal for services to sport.
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On a visit to the Tank Museum in 2000, Joe was given the opportunity to fire the gun of a Challenger II, the tank the British Army uses today.
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Not surprisingly, the then 78-year-old hit the target first time and became the oldest gunner of a Challenger II.
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There is only one working Tiger I left in the world today
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and you can go and visit it at the Tank Museum in Bovington and see it in action on Tiger Day.
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You can find out more about the Tank Museum
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and support the great work they do by visiting patreon.com forward slash tank museum.
このレッスンについて
「The Shoemaker that Stopped the Tank Ace」を使って、シャドーイングで英語を練習しましょう。
毎日15〜30分の練習で、IELTSスピーキングへの自信と実践的な英会話力が身につきます。
シャドーイングとは？英語上達に効果的な理由
シャドーイング（Shadowing）は、もともとプロの通訳者養成プログラムで開発された言語学習法で、多言語習得者として知られるDr. Alexander Arguelles によって広く普及されました。方法はシンプルですが非常に効果的：ネイティブスピーカーの英語を聞きながら、1〜2秒の遅延で声に出してすぐに繰り返す——まるで「影（shadow）」のように話者を追いかけます。文法ドリルや受動的なリスニングと異なり、シャドーイングは脳と口の筋肉が同時にリアルタイムで英語を処理・再現することを強制します。研究により、発音精度、抑揚、リズム、連音、リスニング力、そして会話の流暢さが大幅に向上することが確認されています。IELTSスピーキング対策や自然な英語コミュニケーションを目指す方に特におすすめです。