16-304 Garand Picture of the Day

[Mark in Rochester]

Most people familiar with the history for of the M4 Sherman tank have heard the story that the British nick-named them "Ronsons" after the famous cigarette lighted due to the supposed flammability of the Sherman tank. The story goes that the troops co-opted the Ronson slogan of " lights first every time" to describe their vehicles. This story has been reported in many books and TV shows about the Sherman tank, including highly respected works such as "Armored Thunderbolt" by Steven Zaloga.

Certainly, the idea that the Sherman was uniquely susceptible to fire is a bit of a fable. According to the myth, the Sherman burned easily due to the fact that it used "high octane" gasoline while it's German opponents used diesel (the most famous example of this myth is in the Academy Award winning film "Patton".) In reality, the vast majority all German tanks and AFVs used gasoline engines and the Sherman ran on the same 80 octane fuel as every other US Army vehicle. When a tank is penetrated by an armor piercing shell and "brews up", the fire is usually caused by ammunition, not fuel. The Sherman got a bad reputation in the early stages of the Normandy campaign for catching on fire in part due to improper stowing of ammo. Once the US introduced the "wet stowage" system of ammo storage into the M4 Sherman, the rate of tanks that "brewed up" when hit decreased significantly.

A while back in one of the WoT historical forums, there was a discussion of the "Ronson" legend. One of the posters noted that they could not find any examples of Ronson advertisements from the era that actually used the slogan "lights first every time." I was recently reminded of this thread and decided to do a little searching of my own. Fortunately, there are quite a few Ronson ads available on eBay so examples are not hard to find. Here are some of the ads that I found:

The Tank and AFV Blog: The M4 Sherman Ronson: "Lights First Every Time"