It took 74 years for Lehighton native Clarence Smoyer to get the Bronze Star medal he earned as a Pershing gunner during World War II.

Three weeks ago, sitting around a table in the sun-drenched backyard of his south Allentown home, Smoyer got to meet one of the principal players who made that medal presentation a reality: Palmerton native and retired Sgt. Maj. of the Army Dan Dailey.

“I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done for our country,” Dailey told Smoyer, who is now 98 years old and living with his daughter. “One of the things that I would remind our soldiers every day is that we’re only here because great men and women came before us and did the things that needed to be done to serve their country.”

Walking out on his porch and seeing Dailey, Smoyer seemed to forget the still-lingering effects of a recent illness and let the moment sink in.

“This is a real honor,” Smoyer said with a smile on his face.

Smoyer and his Eagle 7 tank crew helped take Cologne, Germany, from the Nazis on March 6, 1945. The third-largest city in Germany and the heart of the Third Reich at the time, Cologne was a pivotal point of the European theater.

The standoff between Smoyer’s Pershing Eagle and Gustav Schaefer’s German Panther has been dubbed the “greatest tank duel in history.”

Telling his crew’s story to Dailey, Smoyer recalled the events of the encounter like it was yesterday. Three 90 mm rounds, each one a direct hit, into the side of the Panther tank, and the “Hero of Cologne” had led his side to victory and saved countless lives in the process.

In 1994, fellow Lehighton youth Pete Semanoff, who later went on to become an Army major, found Smoyer while working on an Eagle Scout project about veterans.

Smoyer gained national attention when he was the subject of Adam Makos’ book “Spearhead: An American Tank Gunner.” The book reached No. 3 on The New York Times Best Seller list on Feb. 27, 2019, and is in the works to be turned into a film.

Joining Dailey at Smoyer’s home were Ken Wong, civilian aide to the Secretary of the Army; and Ronald Rabenold, Lehighton Area School District fifth-grade teacher and local historian.

Smoyer’s Bronze Star moment finally took place in 2019, but the prequel was nothing short of dramatic.

“Clarence was really a victim to an unusual set of circumstances,” Makos said.

His company commander, Capt. Mason Salisbury, was actually on leave during the Battle for Cologne. By the time he returned, the battle was old news and Smoyer’s tank commander, Bob Earley, was awarded a Bronze Star, as was Sgt. Jim Bates, who filmed the destruction of the Panther tank at the Cathedral.

“Everyone else was kind of forgotten,” Makos said. “Earley even kept the fact that he received a Bronze Star from Clarence. He knew that the man who pulled the trigger was not awarded the Bronze Star and he was sort of embarrassed.”

The matter sat idle until Makos started doing research for “Spearhead.” He and his team gathered witness statements from three men who were there in 1945. They included Sgt. Joe Caserta, the tank commander who fought behind Smoyer; Sgt. Malcom “Buck” Marsh Jr., infantryman; and Cpl. Harley Swenson, tank-driver of Company B.

“All three people, to a man, said Clarence saved their lives and the lives of their buddies around them,” Makos said.

The cherry on top, however, was video footage, shot by Bates from the window of a nearby building.

“He shot the famous footage of the Panther tank actually being hit three times, and then another cameraman from Bates’ team is filming Clarence’s tank from behind as he is shooting,” Makos said. “We submitted all of this to the Army and honestly, we thought we had a slam dunk.”

Months went by before the Army rejected Smoyer’s Bronze Medal request, saying it didn’t meet the necessary requirements.

“They said, well the film shows the Panther being hit, it shows the Pershing tank shooting, and it shows Clarence after the battle, but we can’t see inside that tank to know that he actually pulled the trigger,” Makos said.

The trail went cold until a dinner between Wong and Dailey.

“We had submitted everything for Clarence to get his medal, but sometimes the committee isn’t real clear on what they’re looking for, so I asked Dan, what are we missing?” Wong said.

Dailey, who served on the committee at the time as one of the gatekeepers for prestigious honors such as the Bronze Star, said requests for awards come in surprisingly large numbers. In order to keep “the sanctity of the award,” he said, the historical review part of the vetting process can be lengthy.

“It’s a very deliberate process,” Dailey said. “For a Medal of Honor for instance, there has to be an eyewitness. You can’t claim your own achievements. And it’s not to prevent anyone from getting the award, but to ensure that, ‘thank you for your service,’ is not for sale.”

Dailey agreed to take a look at Smoyer’s Bronze Star candidacy. A couple weeks later, the Army called Makos to inform him they were reopening the case.

“If I had to guess, I’d say Dan urged the awards branch to open their minds,” Makos said. “They had the footage of Clarence in action. There was no question that this man was worthy. They just needed to think outside the box and Dan gave them the push they needed. And it turned out he was right. The answer was right in front of them all along.”

After taking a look at the evidence, awarding the Bronze Star to not only Smoyer, but all five members of the Eagle 7 tank crew, was a no-brainer, Dailey said.

“I called the U.S. Army Center of Military History and when I started watching these videos of Smoyer, I was just saying to myself, ‘Oh my goodness, this is the real deal,’” Dailey said. “That is a case where you walk right in to the secretary’s office and you say, I need this.”

When Smoyer headed to Washington to receive the Bronze Star on Sept. 18, 2019, he thought he would be signing copies of “Spearhead” at the Pentagon. Instead, he found a ceremony at the World War II Memorial, righting what Makos called a 74-year injustice.

“As Clarence is getting that award there, he’s standing there, not just to represent the valor of himself, he was representing all those guys whose valor may have never been noticed,” Makos said. “And it all came about because Dan Dailey is a man of his word. He left that meeting with Ken Wong, went back to D.C. and went to work on behalf of Clarence. I’m deeply grateful to both of those men.”