Shadowing Practice: The Shoemaker that Stopped the Tank Ace - Learn English Speaking with Video
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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.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “The Shoemaker that Stopped the Tank Ace”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: tank, Joe, fired, Sherman, Tiger. This video has 81 sentences and 1273 words to shadow. The speech runs for 6:50. The speaker talks fast, about 186 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. Only 81% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| squadron noun | /ˈskwɒd.ɹən/ | A body of infantrymen made up of several platoons, averaging from eighty to one hundred and fifty men, and led by a captain or a major. |
| orchard noun | /ˈɔɹ.t͡ʃɚd/ | A garden or an area of land for the cultivation of fruit or nut trees. |
| gunner noun | /ˈɡʌn.ɚ/ | An artillery soldier, especially one who holds private rank. |
| assign verb | /əˈsaɪn/ | To designate or set apart (something) for some purpose. |
| armour noun | British standard spelling of armor. | |
| historian noun | /hɪˈstɔɹi.ən/ | A writer of history. |
| ally noun | /ˈæl.aɪ/ | A person who co-operates with or helps another; an associate; a friend. |
| baffle verb | /ˈbæf(ə)l/ | To confuse or perplex (someone) completely; to bewilder, to confound, to puzzle. |
| blindness noun | /ˈblaɪndnəs/ | The condition of being blind; unable to see. |
| characteristically adverb | /ˌkɛɹəktəˈɹɪstɪkli/ | In a usual or expected way; in characteristic manner. |
| concede verb | /kənˈsid/ | To yield or suffer; to surrender; to grant |
| disperse verb | /dɪˈspɝs/ | To scatter in different directions. |
| frighten verb | /ˈfɹaɪ.tən/ | To cause to feel fear; to scare; to cause to feel alarm or fright. |
| hastily adverb | /ˈheɪstɪli/ | In a hasty manner; quickly or hurriedly. |
| notoriety noun | /noʊ.tɚ.aɪ.ə.ti/ | An infamous or notorious condition or reputation. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| pull out verb | To withdraw; especially of military forces; to retreat. |
| bounce off verb | To test (ideas) on someone. |
| break through verb | To gain popularity. |
| bring down verb | To make (a ruler or government) lose their position of power. |
| come across verb | To change sides; to cross over to work for the opposition. |
| come forward verb | To offer help or information, especially about a crime. |
| come round verb | To change direction. |
| find out verb | To discover, as by asking or investigating. |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 8 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, I'd, we'd. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: ammunition /ˌæmjuˈnɪʃən/, obligation /ˌɑ.blɪˈɡeɪ.ʃn̩/
- Long words — get the stress right: historian /hɪˈstɔɹi.ən/, characteristically /ˌkɛɹəktəˈɹɪstɪkli/, notoriety /noʊ.tɚ.aɪ.ə.ti/, ammunition /ˌæmjuˈnɪʃən/, ideology /aɪ.diˈɑ.lə.d͡ʒi/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like squadron, orchard, gunner.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.