The American Provisional Tank Group had been in the Philippines only three weeks when the Japanese attacked the islands hours after the raid on Pearl Harbor. One of the tankmen parked his half-track on a runway and shot down a Japanese Zero that day, but the group's first tank-on-tank action – indeed the first American armor battle of World War II – would come two weeks later. Sent north to meet the Japanese landings in Lingayen Gulf, the men...