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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 of the group, still learning their way around an M3 tank, found themselves thrust into a critical role when the Philippine Army could not hold back the Japanese. The next day, General MacArthur ordered the retreat to Bataan, and over the next two weeks, the PTG, proving itself indispensable, formed a blocking force to cover the retreat and dealt the enemy tanks such a defeat that the Japanese would be timid with their armor for the rest of the campaign. During January, February, and March 1942, the light tanks of the PTG patrolled Bataan's beaches and, in a new r Donald L. Caldwell has been researching World War II for more than thirty years. He has written widely on the German Luftwaffe. His first book, JG 26: Top Guns of the Luftwaffe (Crown, 1991) sold 70,000 copies across all editions, and the two volumes of his JG 26 War Diary (Grub Street, 1996, 1998) are considered the best English-language history of a German fighter unit. He lives near Houston, Texas.