Replies

I read somewhere that the Panthers at Kursk had a gasket in the lubricating oil system that simply blew out by itself, no special reason, dumping the engine oil and likely starting a fire. The engine had to be shut down instantly, and the tank repaired before starting the engine. I mean, those machines were REALLY not ready for prime time. Guderian had to have been really angry.

Notice that the Panther had a starting hand crank. Like the Model T.

Speaking of 2.SS-Panzer-Division Das Reich, Wiki says that 2.SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Das Reich (notice grenadier) and the 2.SS Panzer Regiment (Langanke's outfit) were put together to form the 2.SS-Panzer-Division. These were most elite units. Extremely high quality.

Das Reich had returned from Russia to take in replacements and equipment early in '44. Battle hardened as much as humans get.

Das Reich is infamous for the killings at Oradour-sur-Glane.

The Resistance tried to block the Division there, obstructing the Division's march to Normandy from southern France. The usual number is 642 - the number of French civilians hung in Oradour-sur-Glane after the Resistance ran away. Max Hastings has a book on this march of Das Reich.

War is a rough business.

According to my father who was in the 6th AD. You could hear the Germans starting their tanks up. Once they got one started, they would use it to pull off the others. Another trick they would use, was pulling tanks into position with horses so you couldn't hear the engine. They were a very resourceful bunch of people. I have always wondered where the rumor of the individual German soldier not being able to think for himself came from.

Das Reich is infamous for the killings at Oradour-sur-Glane.

Oradour-sur-Glane 10th June 1944
http://www.oradour.info/

8 June 1944 … Das Reich moved off in the early morning and had skirmishes with the Resistance at various locations. The journey was made both tiring and trying by roadblocks of felled trees and various barricades. Later in the day they heard that the Resistance had mounted a full-scale attack on the German garrison in the town of Tulle.

9 June 1944 … Part of Reconnaissance Battalion II under Heinrich Wulf retook the town of Tulle. In a reprisal for the attack itself and the killing and mutilation of numerous German garrison troops, they hung 99 suspected members of the Resistance from lampposts and balconies.

The commander of Der Führer Battalion III, Sturmbannführer Helmut Kämpfe was sent to the town of Guéret in order to relive the garrison there which was reported to be besieged. On his return from the town that evening and whilst travelling alone he was abducted by the Resistance. He was the highest-ranking German officer ever to fall into their hands throughout the war years.

Battalion I under Adolf Diekmann had a most difficult day, encountering numerous clashes with the Resistance and losing some men killed in action on the march.

10 June 1944 … As a result of the abduction of Kämpfe, circumstances combined to send Diekmann to the town of Oradour-sur-Glane, where during the course of the afternoon the entire town was destroyed and 642 inhabitants were killed as a reprisal.

Ouradour-sur Glane was a little ways past "rough'. They put all the women and children in the Church and either dynamited it or set it on fire. The men were shot in a barn. Anyone entering the town on the day of the massacre were allowed in. No one was allowed out. A number of the participants were from Alsace, and claimed to be French after the war. Tried in absentia, the divisional commander, Lammerding, submitted an affidavit using the unique defense that he was hanging 99 Frenchmen in Toul at the time, so he wasn't responsible.Two books on the massacre: "Massacre at Oradour", by Robin Mackness; "War for an Afternoon", by Jens Kruuse.

On a different note, my Pop was in the hills above St. Lo with the 4th Infantry and saw the bombardment of, and breakout through, St. Lo. He still remembered the air attack, in detail, 50 years later.