Fictional Character Biography
An origin story in G.I. Combat #114 reveals that, at the time of the ghost's arrival, Jeb is a sergeant in the United States Army who commands a Stuart tank fighting with the Allies in the North African Campaign. Jeb and his men are childhood friends who had volunteered for the cavalry when World War II began. The original crew consists of Jeb as tank commander; Arch Asher, loader; Rick Rawlins, gunner; and Slim Stryker, driver.
The ghost of General Stuart does not initially care for his assignment, but is impressed with the fighting spirit of Jeb and his crew. Jeb further honors the ghost by flying a Confederate rather than a Union flag on his "haunted" tank. Jeb, however, is the only one who can see or hear the General. His crew thinks he is crazy, but continue to follow his leadership as he has solid tactical expertise (brought about through his consultations with the General, who usually gives him cryptic hints of future events) and rarely fails in his missions.
As the Haunted Tank fights from Africa to the European Theater of Operations, the crew goes through several M3 tanks. When their latest M3 is destroyed, the crew scavenge spare parts and wreckage from a "tank graveyard" to build themselves a new tank, known as the "Jigsaw Tank", which serves them from that point.
Following a disastrous mission engineered to rescue the son of their commanding officer General Norton from a German P.O.W. camp (based on the Task Force Baum incident), the crew of the Haunted Tank find themselves stranded behind enemy lines and spend several issues fighting their way back to the front. During this, they pick up Gus Gray, an African American soldier who had escaped from the same P.O.W. camp Days later, Arch dies saving them from an exploding kamikaze German tank and Gus takes his place in the crew.
Later in the war, Slim is also killed in action and older veteran Bill Craig replaces him. Craig's son Eddie also joins the crew a few issues later, taking over the loader's position and allowing Gus to act as a second gunner.
The Jigsaw Tank is eventually replaced by an M4 Sherman tank that sees them through to the end of the war. Despite a story that involves the ghost of General William T. Sherman being assigned to the tank once the crew switches to the Sherman, General Stuart's ghost continues to watch over the crew until war's end.
The feature ended when G.I. Combat was cancelled with #288.
Read more about this topic: Haunted Tank
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