Did you know American tankers and trackers hate and fear apricots?

This is a very bad idea. (Photos: Joost J. Bakker / bbcgoodfood.com)

Like any large enough community, the military has its share of superstitions. The one we’re looking at today has to do with apricots… also known by tankers and LVT (“Landing Vehicle, Tracked”) crews as “devil fruit,” “the forbidden fruit,” or simply “a-fruit.” American tankers and trackers associate the Asian fruit with bad luck since World War II, and the prejudice is as strong today as ever. But why?
 
One origin story is that a unit of LVTs trying to reach the shore of one particular Pacific island was sunk by the Japanese with all vehicles and all crew lost – and they carried a cargo of canned apricot. Another, more recent version is that a U.S. unit provisioned with apricots was wiped out to the last man during the Korean War.

These LVTs at Guadalcanal are still seemingly operational, so they’re PROBABLY not transporting apricots (Photo: U.S. Navy)

What all tankers and trackers agree on, Army as well as Marines, is that having any amount of the fruit in any form onboard is inviting bad luck: losing the radio, breaking the suspension, getting shot at or running onto an IED. Allegedly, every time a vehicle broke down, either there were apricot rations onboard, or the poor bastard taking the engine apart eventually found a single apricot seed at the very bottom.

Engine change on a Sherman tank, assumably after apricot exposure
(Photo: National Archives)

To this day, most American tank and tracked landing vehicle crews forbid anyone, even officers, to bring apricot onboard, and even apricot-flavored vapes are out. Some go as far as kicking off anyone who had consumed anything with apricots in it within the last 24 hours.
 
Now, rationalists who insist on taking the mystery out of everything point out that apricots were rather common in U.S. Army and Marine rations during World War II (they no longer are), and the rations were divided equally between all vehicles, so any given vehicle suffering a mishap was statistically likely to have some onboard. We at Beaches of Normandy Tours, however, prefer to err on the side of caution, and you’ll never see us take the devil fruit onboard any tracked vehicle… so many U.S. tankers and trackers can’t be all wrong, can they?