Death Ride of the Panzers
Page 13
On January 6, the tanks of Generalmajor Heinrich-Hermann von Hülsen’s 21.Panzer-Division drove into the American lines from the area around Wissembourg on the northern edge of the German front. Over the next few days, Hülsen’s tanks and the remnants of 25.Panzergrenadier-Division, combined as Kampfgruppe Feuchtinger, were able to push towards Lüttichau’s bridgehead as far as Hatten, a distance of approximately 15 kilometers. By January 16, with the offensive stalling, 10.SS-Panzer-Division led an attack south from Lauterbourg on the extreme left wing of the German northern sector in an attempt fight their way to the Gambsheim bridgehead. Reaching Herrlisheim on the following day, the division was able to intervene in an attack made by US 12th Armored Division on the bridgehead, effectively destroying two Allied battalions, but failing to link up with the German units in Gambsheim. After repeated attempts to break through to the bridgehead, 10.SS-Panzer-Division was moved to new positions in the Hagenau forest, where the Americans were defending a line along the Moder River as the Allies began an attack aimed at Colmar, approximately 60 kilometers south of Strasbourg.
On January 22, the formations of Heeresgruppe G and Oberkommando Oberrhein were able to link up south of Hagenau but could not force a crossing of the Moder River. On the same day the Allies intensified their attacks around Colmar, where a pocket had formed on the western bank of the Rhine between the village of Rhinau in the north and Mulhouse in the south. Defended by a handful of infantry formations, the pocket held out until February 8, when Hitler authorized the withdrawal of all German troops. On the same day, British and Canadian troops launched a major offensive into the Reichswald, the heavily forested area between the Maas and Rhine Rivers, in an effort to break through the Siegfried line defenses in preparation for an assault on the Ruhr industrial region. In the American sector, the last of the seven Ruhr dams was captured on February 10. Extensive flooding, caused by the demolition work of German engineers, ensured that any Allied offensive operations would be slow and painful. It was February 23 before the Americans could resume their advance. It would be early March before any real advance was made into the Ruhr, with the capture of Köln coming in the first week of the month.
The German offensives of December and January had caused surprise and shock in the Allied camp and, for at time, a great deal of consternation. The advance into Germany, and with it the end of the war, had been stalled while reinforcements were rushed from other areas of the front to reduce the Bulge in the Ardennes. Allied leaders, who had hoped that the conflict would end by Christmas, were now forced to admit that the war would drag on into 1945, possibly until as late as August. Although the Germans had been beaten back to their starting positions, one of Hitler’s main objectives had been to drive a wedge, both militarily and politically, between the Anglo-American armies and he had come closer than was evident at the time to achieving his aim. However, the last reserves of both manpower and armor had been used up in ultimately fruitless attacks, ensuring that any future German offensive operations would be localized counterattacks. The Luftwaffe was completely spent as a military force and would take almost no further part in the war in the west, consumed as it was with the defense of Germany’s cities. The real winner of the winter battles in the west was Stalin, whose Red Army had advanced to the eastern bank of the Oder River, just 60 kilometers from Berlin, by the end of January 1945.
THE GERMAN ARMY IN THE WEST, DECEMBER 1944
By November 1944, in the defensive fighting in Normandy and the subsequent withdrawal across France and the Low Countries, the German armed forces in the west had suffered almost three-quarters of a million casualties. In an extraordinary logistical and administrative effort, the army had been able to rebuild many of its shattered divisions by absorbing personnel from the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe, by extending the call-up to all males between 16 and 60 years of age, and by conscripting men who had previously been exempt as essential to the war effort. By these measures, the Wehrmacht was able to increase its manpower strength on the Western Front from just over 400,000 to over one million. By December 1944, the German Army in the West was organized into three separate Heeresgruppen or army groups and a single higher command. The three army groups, referred to as Heeresgruppen B, G, and H, were under the control of Generalfeldmarshall von Rundstedt as Oberbefehlshaber West. The strongest was Generalfeldmarschall Model's Heeresgruppe B, which would provide the main strike force for the coming Ardennes Offensive. Oberkommando Oberrhein, often incorrectly referred to as an army group, came under the command of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler in his position as commander of the Ersatzheer. Note that only armored units are shown in detail.
PANZERS IN THE WEST, DECEMBER 1944
1. PzKpfw Tiger ausf E. Panzergruppe Paderborn. Not to be confused with the Panzer-Kompanie Paderborn mentioned earlier in this book, this unit was formed at the end of March 1945 from the operational tanks of Panzer-Lehr und Ausbildungs-Abteilung Tiger.
The group contained eleven Tiger I and six Tiger II tanks and a number of other vehicles. It fought in the area of Paderborn, south-west of Hanover, until April 12, 1945, when the last tank was destroyed. The Tiger I depicted here may have been the group's last operational vehicle.
The tank shown in the photograph at left and below is often associated with Panzer-Kompanie Hummel; however, other photographs of the same vehicle clearly show the turret number 201 and the field modification of a rack fitted to the turret stowage bin. The turret number would seem to eliminate Panzer-Kompanie Hummel as that unit's numbers began with a 1, when the company operated independently, or a 4, when it was attached to schwere Panzer-Abteilung 506. The configuration of the rack is almost identical to others seen of the tanks of schwere Panzer-Abteilung 301.
2. PzKpfw Tiger ausf E. Schwere Panzer-Abteilung 301 (Funklenk). Photographed in February 1945 at Elsdorf, west of Cologne, this tank must have been one of the last serviceable vehicles available to the battalion. A rack has been fitted to the turret stowage bin and this vehicle has a debris guard covering the mantlet of the main gun. This can also be seen in the photograph (3), although it is quite damaged. The turret number almost certainly indentifies one of the second company's command tanks.
1. Sturmgeschütz III ausf G. Unit unidentified. Photographed near Ostenholtz in northern Germany in April 1945, this assault gun is often associated with Kampfgruppe Schulze, an ad-hoc formation raised from elements of the Panzerschule Bergen. However, if the location and date are correct, it is more likely that this is one of the two assault guns of Kampfgruppe Grosan. The Kampfgruppe was under the command of Oberst Erhard Grosan and was disbanded on April 21, 1945, although a single Tiger fought on until May 1, when it was destroyed by British tanks.
2. Sturmgeschütz III ausf G. Unit unidentified. Photographed in western Czechoslovakia or possibly southern Germany in the spring of 1945, this vehicle is one of the assault guns converted from obsolete PzKpfw III tanks late in the war. Approximately 170 of these conversions were completed and the vehicles were fitted with a simple outward opening hatch (3) in place of the commander's cupola, concrete armor on the superstructure front, and a Bosch headlight on the left front fender (missing here). As an economy measure, the shield for the loader's machine gun was replaced by a simple bracket that held the gun.
1. Sdkfz 251.21 Drilling. 4.Kompanie, Panzergrenadier-Regiment 60. Attached to 116.Panzer-Division, this unit was in combat around Kirchhellen, north of Essen, in March 1945, when this vehicle was photographed. Note that this halftrack does not have the armor panels normally fitted around the top of the hull to protect the gun shield. These vehicles were armed with a triple mount (2) of either the 1.5cm MG 151/15 or 2cm MG 151/20 gun, which had become surplus to the requirements of the Luftwaffe.
3. Sdkfz 162 Jagdpanzer IV. Unit unidentified. Said to have been photographed near Dresden in April 1945, this tank destroyer’s badly worn coating of Zimmerit suggests that it had been in service for some time. The maps produced by the headquarters of US 12th Army Group sh
ow that the front had only reached Chemnitz, almost 60 kilometers to the west of Dresden, by the time of the German surrender and that four units in the immediate area were designated as armored formations by US intelligence officers. The first of these, and closest, was Fallschirm-Panzergrenadier-Division 2 Hermann Göring and it is possible, although far from certain, that elements of Korps-Panzerjäger-Abteilung Hermann Göring, which had a number of these vehicles on hand, may have been with the division. Lastly, and less likely, were parts of the Führer-Begleit-Division and Division Nr. 469, the latter made up of various training units, including Panzer-Ausbildungs-Verband Franken. Elements of 21.Panzer-Division, whose Panzer-jäger battalion reported four of these vehicles on hand in the previous January, appear in these maps from May 3, 1945. However, this must be incorrect as the division left for the east in early February.
1. Sturmgeschutz III. 5.Kompanie, Panzer-Regiment 15. The identification of this assault gun with the Panzer regiment of 11.Panzer-Division is based largely on the area in which it was photographed, style of number, and the assumption that any other possible candidates did not contain a fifth company. This vehicle was knocked out during the fighting near Hönsruck in western Germany.
Most vehicles of the division carried the distinctive unit insignia shown above (2).
3. Panzerbefehlswagen IV ausf G. Photographed in central Germany in April 1945, this command tank was captured almost intact. These specialist vehicles were equipped with an FuG 8 and FuG 5 radio, which were used for communicating with headquarters and other tanks respectively, along with an FuG 7, which could be used to call in air support. The FuG 8 is easily recognisable by the Sternantenna fitted to the rear deck, while the FuG 7 used a 1.4 meter aerial placed on the rear hull and protected by an armoured sleeve. The FuG 5 employed a 2 meter aerial situated on the turret roof in front of the cupola. Note the name Rita (4) painted onto the barrel of the main gun.
1. PzKpfw IV ausf J. Panzer-Regiment 15. Photographed in March or April 1945, in Bavaria, the system of marking shown here is an identifying feature of the tanks of 11.Panzer-Division by this time. Note that this tank has just three return rollers, visible behind the Thoma Schild, the fourth being dropped from production in December 1944. The camouflage pattern is typical of the factory-applied schemes of the late war period.
2. PzKpfw IV ausf J. Unit unidentified. The photographs on which this illustration is based came from a private collection (3) and no details are known about this tank or even the exact location. The camouflage pattern and large white numbers are similar to those seen on PzKpfw IV tanks of Panzer-Regiment 22, although that is merely speculation. It is, however, in remarkably good condition and may have simply been abandoned after running out of fuel.
1. Sturmgeschütz III ausf G. Unit unidentified. By 1945, many assault guns could be seen with hull Schürzen that were fitted so as to be able to pivot and swing freely (3) as the vehicle moved. This was as opposed to the original system where the armored plates were fixed to a rail that was bolted to the hull and mudguards. The fact that these arrangements can be seen on both the Eastern and Western fronts and were fitted to the assault guns of units which had no connection with each other suggests that this may not have been a field modification, as is usually supposed.
2. Sturmgeschütz III ausf G. Unit unidentified. The arrangement of the Schürzen here is almost identical to the vehicle shown above except that the armor protecting the superstructure is made up of two parts. Note the dark border of the Balkenkreuz, here depicted as Olivgrün. The practice of using subdued insignia was became increasingly common by the end of the war. Both vehicles are fitted with the Rundumsfeuer remotely-controlled machine gun, which was incorporated into production between May and September 1944, depending on the manufacturer.
1. PzKpfw III ausf N. Panzer-Abteilung Norwegen. Originally formed from the second and third companies of Panzer-Regiment 9 from 25.Panzer-Division, the battalion was stationed in central Norway until May 1945. By the war's end a number of Sturmgeschütz III assault guns were also on hand, in addition to several tanks of the type shown here. After the war, the battalion was used to clear the extensive minefields of the Atlantic Wall defences. Another formation equipped with obsolete tanks, 233.Reserve-Panzer-Division, was deployed in Denmark and the PzKpfw III ausf N shown here (2) was probably allocated to Reserve-Panzer-Regiment 5. In April 1945, most of the division's personnel and equipment were absorbed by Panzer-Division Clausewitz.
2. Sturmgeschütz III ausf G. Unit unidentified. Abandoned outside the town of Mölsheim, near Worms, the hull Schürzen of this assault gun had been removed and placed at the front of the vehicle as either extra protection or an attempt to hide the vehicle, although the illustration depicts the metal plates in their correct positions. The company number would suggest a vehicle of an anti-tank unit and Panzerjäger-Abteilung 1559 of 559.Volksgrenadier-Division, which had a number of these vehicles on hand and was operating in this area in March 1945, although any definite identification is not possible.
1. PzKpfw Tiger ausf E. Tiger-Gruppe Fehrmann. This unit was hastily formed at the end of the war, with maintenance depots using whatever vehicles and parts could be scraped together. Consequently, the Tigers featured a mixture of early and late production features and even pre-1943 camouflage. All were, however, marked with a large letter F, for the commander Oberleutnant Fehrmann, followed by a two-digit number. Many numbers were quite roughly applied, as shown in the photograph at right (2). Several photographs have recently come to light showing the right-hand side of Tiger F01, as it is depicted here.
3. PzKpfw Tiger ausf E. Tiger-Gruppe Fehrmann. This Tiger has an early production turret, complete with drum-style cupola, large pistol port, and Schwartzgrau camouflage. The single headlight on the left-hand side at the front indicates that the hull was manufactured prior to October 1943, although the steel road wheels were introduced into production from February 1944.
1. PzKpfw Tiger ausf B. 3.Kompanie, schwere Panzer-Abteilung 511. Commanded by Feldwebel Heinz Wilms, this tank was disabled and abandoned near Kassel in late March or early April 1945. This was one of eight Tiger II tanks picked up from the Henschel factory and driven straight to the front, which by then was only a few short miles away. This tank was photographed from several angles (2), allowing an accurate depiction of the intricate camouflage pattern. Interestingly, other images of this tank show it fitted with the narrow transport tracks and a full set of hull Schürzen on the right hand side. Only the battalion's third company served in the west, the remainder being destroyed in the battles in East Prussia.
3. PzKpfw Tiger ausf B. Panzergruppe Hudel. Formed for the defense of the Ludendorf Bridge at Remagen, this unit contained elements of schwere Panzer-Abteilung 506, schwere Panzerjäger-Abteilung 512, and schwere Panzerjäger-Abteilung 654, although all these heavy tank units were badly depleted by that time. This vehicle is painted in a much simplified version of the factory-applied Ambush camouflage scheme, employing just two colors, probably Olivgrün and Dunkelgelb.
1. PzKpfw V Panther ausf G. Unit unidentified. Although any definitive identification of this vehicle is not possible, it may be one of the Panthers of Panzer-Abteilung 2106 handed over to Panzer-Division Clausewitz in April 1945. It has been suggested that the tanks from Panzer-Brigade 106 were allocated to Panzerkampfgruppe Wallenberg, part of the division’s armored component, and although this is entirely possible I have not been able to find any confirmation. The formation of this division, the last German armored unit raised during the war, is discussed in detail in the main text of this book.
2. PzKpfw V Panther ausf G. Panzer-Abteilung Putlos. Photographed near Fallersleben, near Brunswick in western Germany, this tank is painted in the factory-applied camouflage scheme employed by the firms of MAN and Daimler-Benz and introduced from August 1944. The Flammvernichter, or flame-dampener, exhaust mufflers and the raised fan housing on the rear deck were both incorporated into production from October 1944. The photograph at left (3)
shows the vehicle on which the illustration is based. The battalion was formed from elements of the Schiess-Schule Putlos and attached to Panzer-Division Clausewitz and has the fittings for the BIWA infrared sighting equipment, as many of the battalion’s tanks did. The history of the US 407th Infantry Regiment describes a battle fought in this area on April 21, 1945, against ten Panther tanks. This may be one of those vehicles.
1. PzKpfw V Panther ausf G. Panzer-Abteilung Putlos. Photographed near Fallersleben, north-east of Brunswick, in April 1945, this tank is one of several Panthers seconded from the tank gunnery school at Putlos and attached to Kampfgruppe von Benningsen, part of Panzer-Division Clausewitz. Many of this unit's Panthers were fitted with the attachments and brackets for the BIWA infrared sighting equipment, although it is almost certain that none were equipped with the actual sights. A number of tanks (2) were also handed over from Panzer-Abteiling 2106 and retained their original markings.
3. PzKpfw V panther ausf D. Unit unidentified. Photographed in the town of Bamberg in northern Bavaria in April 1945, this early model tank was almost certainly drafted from one of the training establishments as an emergency measure. The early road wheels, with their sixteen reinforcing bolts, were phased out of production from September 1943, and assembly of this model of the Panther ceased in the same month. Replacement barrels were delivered in the dark gray heat resistant primer depicted here. This example seems to have been roughly camouflaged with Olivgrün.