*Klotzen! Panzer Battles graphic of B-17F Flying Fortres

On December 20, 1943, American B-17 bomber pilot Charlie Brown and crew attempted to bomb an aircraft production facility in Bremen, Germany. The factory was surrounded by 250 anti-aircraft guns, which damaged Brown’s B-17, Ye Olde Pub, disabling two engines and forcing the plane out of formation. The damaged aircraft was set upon by German fighter planes, which seriously wounded several crew members and knocked out all but one of the plane’s engines.




While the fighters turned their attention to other prey, Ye Olde Pub was spotted by German fighter pilot Franz Stigler, who was refueling. Stigler caught up with the plane and was about to blast them when he saw the crew was seriously wounded. A combat veteran with 22 confirmed kills, Stigler was reluctant to attack a defenseless aircraft, so instead pulled alongside the B-17 cockpit and signaled the crew to land. They refused. He then motioned in the direction of Sweden, but the Allied crew didn’t understand (who would really? “Oh, right, you mean Sweden, of course.”)



Stigler flew side-by-side with the bomber, afraid his own military might identify him (his behavior might get him executed). As the bomber approached the safety of the English Channel, Stigler saluted and peeled off. Miraculously, Brown kept the plane in the air and made it to England. He often wondered why his German counterpart hadn’t shot him down so, after the war, placed an ad in a WW II newsletter for pilot veterans. Stigler, who relocated to Canada, spotted the ad. The two reunited, and Stigler explained that to shoot at them would have been dishonorable. The pair became close friends until their deaths in 2008.

A small group of WWII Norwegian commandos are skiing away from an Arctic Nazi base with 3,000 German soldiers on them. Norwegians just set off explosive charges inside the aforementioned base, ruining Germany’s chances of producing nuclear weapons. So, Adolf Hitler could produce nuclear bomb if it wasn’t this situation.

During Operation Gunnerside in 1943, when the Germans rudely came to crash on Norway’s couch in the early ’40s, they took over a factory up in Telemark that produced heavy water (is a form of water that contains a larger than normal amount of the hydrogen isotope deuterium (2H or D, also known as heavy hydrogen), rather than the common hydrogen-1 isotope (1H or H, also called protium) that makes up most of the hydrogen in normal water. The presence of deuterium gives the water different nuclear properties, and the increase of mass gives it slightly different physical and chemical properties when compared to normal water.)– aka, exactly the thing they needed to make plutonium. The Allies, realizing that “Nazis with ingredients for an atom bomb” was a somewhat undesirable situation, sent 30 British Army officers to sabotage the plant, but a combination of awful weather conditions and the Gestapo killed the entire group. So, the Allies tried the other way and sent even more deadly than 11 Norwegians commandos.

Germans then decided to beef up the plant’s defenses, sprinkling mines, floodlights, and guards all over the plant. The only way to get into nuke factory was a Nazi-held bridge over a 660-foot ice gorge.

…or at least the Germans thought that was the only way in — the Norwegians simply climbed down the supposedly un-scalable ice gorge and snuck into the factory. They laid the explosives and were about to light the fuse and escape, but the base’s Norwegian caretaker, whom they were holding at gunpoint, announced he’d lost his glasses and refused to leave until they were found. Naturally, the commandos put the “stop Hitler from getting the bomb” plan on hold until they’d located glasses of their commandos’ colleague.



Not only did the commandos complete their mission without casualties, they released the caretaker and another civilian as soon as the fuses were lit, and get medals.

One of them (and three other Norwegians) actually came back later to sink the ferry the Germans were trying to use to evacuate the heavy water they already had.

Movie title, that was inspired by this story, is “The Heroes of Telemark”. The film stars Kirk Douglas as Dr. Rolf Pedersen and Richard Harris as Knut Straud, along with Ulla Jacobsson as Anna Pedersen. It was filmed on location in Norway.

from: http://www.cracked.com/article_22714_5-true-wwii-stories-too-insane-history-books.html

The heroic WWII mission to capture a deadly Tiger Tank from the Germans was revealed for the first time in 2012.

“Major!” barked Winston Churchill to young military engineer. “I want you to go and catch me a Tiger”. I want you to bring me a Tiger tank. Park the bloody thing outside my front door. Do you understand?”

“Perfectly sir,” replied Major Douglas ­Lidderdale.
That was the start of one of the most dangerous and heroic missions of the Second World War. The mission to capture a Tiger was shrouded in such secrecy that it was only after Douglas’s death in 1999 that his son David learned the truth about his father’s mission.


The deadly German Tigers had started rolling off the production line in August of 1942 and were wiping out Allied soldiers, decimating their morale. Allied tank crew`s terror of Tigers was so widespread it got its own nickname-Tigerphobia. But if the Tiger could be captured, then the Allies could learn how to destroy them in battle.

So on January 22, 1943, Douglas kissed his wife Kathleen goodbye, and left for Tunisia. He took a hand-picked team: tank driver Corporal Bill Rider, Sergeant Sam Shaw and ­Lieutenant Reg Whatley. They arrived in Tunisia in the first week of February 1943 to a 20-mile wide front from El Aroussa in the south to Beja in the north.



But two months passed and Douglas became frustrated, as he had only near misses. One Tiger was blown up by the Royal Engineers. Another was towed to safety by the German army. A third was destroyed by its crew to stop it being captured.

Then on April 21, Doug’s chance finally came. He woke early, his tent rocked by the sound of heavy gunfire. With 250,000 enemy troops bottled up in north-east Tunisia, the Allies had been just a day away from forcing the enemy to surrender or sweep them into the sea. But the Germans had learned of their plans and launched a surprise attack.

Douglas knew it was his big chance. He said to Reg: “You can bet your life that among them are Tigers on the prowl. This could be our lucky day, the chance to nab one at last.” They climbed into their Churchill tank and went Tiger-hunting, heading to the battlefield.



Almost straight away Douglas saw his opportunity. Less than half a mile away he spotted the turret of a Mark VI Tiger – Tiger 131. The hatch was open and a soldier was examining the gun. The turret was jammed. “We’ll cut around the edge of the ridge and then down the slope,” Douglas explained. “At top speed, we can be right up his backside in just a few minutes.”
He peppered the German with bullets, then shouted to Bill to get alongside the Tiger and climbed on to the roof. As he tried to keep his balance, one of the Germans emerged with an MP 40 machine gun. Douglas was staring in the death`s face but then Sam shot the German.

When this mini-battle was over, Douglas turned to his men, ordered them to unscrew their water canteens and said: ­“Gentlemen I propose a toast. To the capture of the Tiger – Herr Hitler’s favourite toy.”

A few weeks later, Churchill came to Tunisia to see the tank for himself and said: “One day Mr Lidderdale, the nation will know all about the courage of you and your men. But you must not talk about this mission until I give you the word.” King George VI was the next VIP to visit the Tiger, after making the longest air journey of a monarch.

The next task for Major Lidderdale and his men was transporting the Tiger back to Britain. But, the Germans knew a British officer had a Tiger tank. Pursued by them, he only reached Algeria in August. Finally, on the morning of September 20, 1943, he headed for Britain with the tank on foredeck of the Ocean Strength. The ship was pursued by U-Boats and strafed by Luftwaffe planes but in October 1943 she arrived at Glasgow.



Upon his arrival Douglas headed to Whitehall, where Churchill greeted him: “Mr. Schicklgruber (Hitler) and his Huns will be crying themselves to sleep tonight. Thank you, Colonel.”

“Thank you sir but if I may say so, with respect, I’m only a major,” Douglas said.
“With respect, I think you can call yourself Colonel after this,” replied the Prime Minister.

In November 1943 the tank was paraded on Horse Guards Parade. And Tiger 131 now has its place at Bovington Tank Museum in Dorset.

Story and Images: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/heroic-wwii-mission-capture-deadly-820143

In the mid 1930s it became clear that only two main models of tanks will be kept in service of the British army-an infantry tank and a cruiser tank, which was intended to exploit breakthroughs and make forays deep into enemy territory. The pilot model of the first cruiser tank was ready in 1936 under the designation A9E1.
A9E1 was the first British tank to use a fully hydraulically-powered traverse turret and to have a centrally located turret. Its armor was light, with maximum thickness of 14 mm, but the tank was fast, as it could achieve top speed of 25 mph (40 km/h). A9 was armed with 2-pounder QF gun and three Vickers .303 machine guns. It had weight of around 12 tons and it carried a crew of six, who were placed in tight space.
The design of A9 was accepted in 1937 and the order was placed for 125 units. The first ones left the factory in January 1939 and the last ones in January 1941. Unlike the pilot design, Mk I was produced in two main variants-as a Cruiser Mk I (A9) armed with 2-pounder QF gun and as a Cruiser Mk I (CS-for close support) armed with 3.7 inch (94 mm) /L15 breech-loaded howitzer (which were actually altered A9 models that could fire HE shells) .
The Cruiser Mk I (A9) saw combat in France, Africa and in Greece. It was effective against weakly-armored Italian tanks and its 2-pounder gun could penetrate armor of German IIID and IVD tanks. However, when the Germans introduced more thickly armoured Panzer IVE variant in North Africa in the spring of 1941, Cruiser Mk1 was quickly rendered obsolete. By the end of 1941, all surviving Cruiser Is were removed from the front line and kept for training.



Unfortunately for the British, the first Cruiser had numerous disadvantages. It minimal armor made it very vulnerable for most Axis anti-tank weapons. The Cruiser was also mechanically unreliable-the suspension pitched around on uneven ground and the tracks often fell off. Also, a major weakness was the fact that A9s two-pounder gun could not fire high explosive shells that were needed to destroy enemy artillery, anti-tank guns and soft-skinned vehicles. This weakness became painfully obvious in fighting against the Germans in Africa in 1941, as the German tanks were always supported with panzer grenadiers, anti-tank guns and artillery. This was the main reason for altering A9s and fitting them with 3.7 inch (94 mm) /L15 breech-loaded howitzer (the CS version of Mk I could fire smoke and HE shells but not the armor-piercing ones).
The legacy of the Mk I could be found in Cruiser Mk II (A10), which was an up-armoured version of A9 (and was lacking frontal mini-turrets). Cruiser Mk II A10 was also produced in small numbers. The tank that was also related to A9 was the Valentine, which borrowed the suspension and many parts from A9. Today, surviving Mk Is can be seen on display at The Tank Museum in Bovington, England and at Cavalry Tank Museum in Ahmednagar, India.



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“Fury” puts tank warfare front and center in a depiction of the Allied final push into Germany in 1945.

In the movie, a U.S. Army sergeant (played by Brad Pitt) commands a medium-size Sherman tank in battle against Nazi forces that have superior firepower, including a well-equipped Tiger I heavy tank. The film features the last working Tiger tank in the world.

The Sherman tank (officially called the Medium Tank, M4) was the most widely deployed tank in World War II. This workhorse vehicle was used by the U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps and the British, Canadian and Free French forces. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, 49,324 Sherman tanks were made between 1942 and 1946.

The M4 was a reliable tank, but the German Tiger heavy tanks outclassed it by far. The Tiger I (officially known as Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger Ausf. H) was deployed on all German fronts during WWII. The formidable tank weighed 50 tons (54 metric tons) and was heavily armored. About 1,350 Tiger tanks were produced in total, between August 1942 and August 1944.



During a scene in “Fury” four M4 tanks go head-to-head with one Tiger I, and only one M4 survives the fight.

An M4 Sherman like the one featured in the film could penetrate the upper frontal hull of a Tiger 1 from about 1,600 to 3,300 feet (500 meters to 1000 m), while the Tiger could knock out an M4 from the front from about 2,600 feet (800 m), according to a Tiger crew instruction manual.

Both tanks used in the film — the Sherman M4A3E8 and the Tiger 131 — are authentic, and belong to the Tank Museum in Bovington, England.

The Tiger 131 was built in Kassel, Germany, in February 1943 and was shipped to Tunisia to join the 504th German heavy tank battalion, according to the Tank Museum’s website. On April 21, 1943, the Tiger was taken out of action by a Churchill tank of the British 48th Royal Tank Regiment, and was captured and repaired. On September 25, 1951, the Tiger was given to the Tank Museum.

The Tiger was “one of the most feared weapons unleashed by the Nazis,” capable of destroying an enemy tank from more than 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) away, Richard Smith, the Tank Museum’s director, told the BBC.

Yet despite its ferocity, the Tiger wasn’t invincible. Its tracks would freeze up with mud and snow in the winter, which Russian forces used to their advantage in battle. The tanks engines were underpowered, making them difficult to drive. Tigers also faced problems because of their large size. Since few bridges could handle the Tiger’s weight, the first version contained a snorkel that allowed the tanks to cross rivers up to 13 feet (4 m) deep, but later versions lacked this feature, according to the History Learning Site. If you want to know what story inspired the movie, you can find it on:

Link to original article: https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2015/09/10/wwii_tank_crew_that_inspired_the_movie_fury_108455.html

Image: http://waralbum.ru/259414/

Visit: Tank story #7

Guardian of Hitler`s last days

Americans produced a lot, so the Germans needed to be more advanced in producing their arsenal.

King Tiger was a spectacular tank! Advanced optics, powerful gun and quite a speed for its weight (690 hp; 8 gears forward and 4 in reverse; a max speed of over 40km/h – that was quite impressive for 1944 when it first saw combat).

Germany could never come near the production capacity of US alone, not to mention USSR as well as UK and Canada so they needed to build better equipment that would be superior to whatever Allies and Soviets could produce. Such examples are not only seen in tank production but also in other instances of German arsenal.

In Berlin on April 1945 heavy fighting took place as the Red Army was pushing deeper into the city.

At some point, King Tiger no.314 which was commanded by Georg Diers got the orders to set up a defensive position close to Reichstag and the Führerbunker. As they got closer to their objective, the crew inside the tank noticed increased Russian radio traffic. When King Tiger arrived to the scene, Diers spotted around thirty Russian T34s to his right close to the Kroll Opera House building.

After briefing the crew, Diers stormed around the corner, opened fire and managed to knock out almost all of them. King Tiger no.314 destroyed 39 Soviet tanks (IS-2s and T-34s) during the last days of the Battle of Berlin, and the largest part of this number had been achieved during this engagement.

This happened on the afternoon of 30 of April 1945, the same day Hitler killed himself. Following the Hitler`s death, some Germans decided to attempt a breakthrough and escape the Russian encirclement. For this final attack, all running vehicles were placed together, with the King Tiger under the command of Diers.

The assault started just before midnight on May the 1st. There were many high-ranking Germans in the group, including Martin Bormann. They tried to push through Friedrichstraße station.

King Tiger no.314 pushed forward through heavy fire losing all infantry support in the process. Ironically, despite the successful advance of the tank, it was disabled soon after by a German mine.

Georg Diers and his crew abandoned the tank. But, they failed to reach the Allied lines. All of them, except his loader Alex Sommer (who was shot in the stomach and declared missing), were eventually captured by Soviets. They were all released from captivity in 1949, four years after the war. Diers later wrote a book called “Tiger in Berlin“.

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In August 1944 during the Red Army`s Lvov–Sandomierz Offensive in Poland German and Soviet tank titans clashed with each other. Three King Tigers started their attack on bridge over the Vistula River. But something unexpected happened – they had already been spotted by one Red Army tank commander. Three well hidden T-34/85s, supported with Soviet infantry, were waiting together in the bushes.

When King Tigers were about 200 meters from Soviets, T-34 opened fire at one of King Tiger’s side armor, using APDS (Armour -piercing discarding sabot) rounds. The first two shots had hit the German tank and failed to penetrate the armor, but then the third one hit the turret and caused the ammunition to explode, sending the turret flying into the air; the German crew was killed on the spot.

The T-34s continued barrage and shots had hit another King Tiger 3 times but again did not penetrate thick and strong frontal armor that Tigers had. A fourth round hit just underneath the main turret and again caused ammunition to explode, killing the entire crew.

The last King Tiger tried to escape at full-speed but was pursued and disabled by the T-34s. The T-34s shots could not penetrate this King Tiger’s thick armor, but they caused big chunks of armor to come off and fly inside the German tank, cutting 3 of the crew members to shreds. Last crew member was slightly injured and was taken prisoner by the Soviets.

But that’s not all! The immobilized King Tiger was captured, then repaired and moved to testing grounds at Kubinka for the Soviets to examine it. The result was staggering:

King Tiger had a tendency to breakdown. The tank broke down every 10 miles. During the transfer to their testing grounds and getting to suitable rail transport the Soviets found the cooling system is insufficient for the excessively hot conditions of the Russian sultry summer. The engine tended to overheat and cause a failure of the gearbox. The right suspension of the tank had to be completely replaced, and its full functionality could not be re-established. The 8.8 cm KwK 43 in terms of penetration and accuracy was found to be on par with the 122 mm D-25T which proved capable of passing a round straight through and out of the captured King Tiger’s turret at a range of 430 yards.

The welding of the King Tiger (even with the usual careful German craftsmanship), was significantly worse than the similar designs of Tiger I. This meant that even when the shells were unable to penetrate the King armor, they caused the plates to break into smaller pieces, which would cause injury or death to the crew sitting inside.

In December 1943, huge Soviet operation wan on-going. Whole north part of SSSR was liberated. Even so, still there was some difficulties. One of the kind story goes for Lieutenant of T-34, Stepan Tkachenko, who got stuck with his tank in a half-frozen swamp close to Pskov (not far from Estonian and Latvians border).

After the whole crew was killed only radio operator Viktor Chernyshenko left alive. During the night he found another tank driver and joined by another tank driver Alexey Sokolov, who secretly reached the tank from the positions of the Soviet troops. But, he couldn’t put tank off the swamp embrace and save his colleague.

Still, Chernyshenko and Sokolov decided not to abandon the T-34 but to fight, and for 13 days they resisted fierce attacks by the German infantry. With just several cans of meat, a bit of sugar, several biscuits and just the water which dripped into the tank from the swamp.

Frozen, hungry and sleepless, the two Soviet soldiers fended off the continuous barrage of German attacks until on December 30 the Soviet troops broke through the enemy lines towards the solitary T-34.

In the end, Alexey Sokolov died the next day after the rescue. Chernyshenko managed to survive the battle, but unfortunately had to have both legs amputated.

Link: https://www.rbth.com/history/329862-3-greatest-victories-t-34
Image: https://66.media.tumblr.com/17bd54b845dd4de960eaf69bc1eb9def/tumblr_ox2tm7PKUw1w636mro1_1280.jpg

Can you imagine yourself sitting in dead-frozen T-34 tank in the middle of river, for several days? And that’s not all…

Captain Gavriil Polovchenya and his tank crew got stuck in a river near the town of Andreapol, in winter 1942, one of the coldest ever. Until they were waiting for support to get them out of the mud and frost, an unexpected “help” came – Germans arrived and surrounded the tank.

Captain Polovchenya ordered absolute silence so that German outnumber ears don’t spot their moves or voices. In absolutely frozen T-34 there were only living dead so to speak.

Although the Germans couldn’t open the hatch, they thought that the tank had been abandoned and decide, for no known reasons, to dragged already heavy T-34 out of the water. On January 15, the Germans sent T-34, with tank crew that was stuck inside, not knowing for them, to Andreapol, while the Polovchenya and others inside continued to keep dead silence.

Next morning Soviets start the motor and attempted a breakthrough, not knowing what their chance was. Somehow, they stumbled on the town streets, firing, smashing, crashing Germans, their equipment and everything else on their way to liberty. Dozens of German soldiers, over 30 military cars and trucks, and 10 artillery guns were destroyed, as the T-34 flee to Soviet position, victoriously.

That same day Andreapol were released from claws of German army, that couldn’t realize how they tricked and embarrassed they were.



Inspiration text: https://www.rbth.com/history/329862-3-greatest-victories-t-34

Image: http://www.invisiblethemepark.com/2013/02/soviet-t-34-tank-cutaway-1950/

Two brothers in swimming tank

This story is just one among many others that was written by the people who was involved in WWII and collected by BBC. Contributed by Mr Laurie Burn that was a tank commander in Sherman tank, located in Sword Beach, Normandy, France.

The D-day and voyage

His first impression of the beginnings of D-Day was that there was simply no joy in crossing the Channel in a flat-bottomed boat! He had hung a bucket on the back of their tank, and it was one continuous stagger to the bucket to be sick and then back. In his story he is saying that he even wanted everything to sink, that much weight he had in his guts.

His brother Pete and he were members of the same Sherman tank crew. Co-driver and a gunner. And name of their tank was ‘Icanhopit’, but by the end of the war they were in ‘Icanhopit 4’. You can guess why…

Endurance under the stress situations were done in submarine station in Gosport. Weeks of sitting in an so-called improvised tank turret, in a 20ft-deep concrete bath poured by 2,000 gallons of water in, testing nervous system of Sherman tank crews!

The DD tanks!

You may wonder why but you must know that Sherman tank was known as one of the swimming tanks, because they were duplex drive vehicles. They could float even they had 32-tonne. Collapsible canvas screen fitted raised or lowered by means of compressed air in bottles. Once the screen was raised the tank was driven by two propellers from the main engine and steered by rudder and a very long tiller. That’s how Sherman tanks were very seaworthy.

Under the most terrific bombardment off the French coast they crossed the Channel. Unbelievably big and vast Armada of ships was behind them: battleships blazing off their big guns; rocket projectile ships launching hundreds of rockets; and the RAF bombing the landing area. When they heard „floater“, they knew this was it and they need to go there for what they were prepared to. Seeing photos before that, they knew how coast looks. Photos of the area at Ouistreham, where they were to land, start to be reality.

Becoming a man

After they begun to float Sherman tank were all so low in the sea, he looked more like rowing boats, but that was part of the surprise plan. “It was 6.30 hours. H-hour was 7.25 – we were to land at H 7.5 minutes. The bombardment went on and it was about this time that I stopped being a boy and became a man, because the landing craft carrying the infantry troops and commandos began to overtake us and some of them simply went over the tops of the tanks.”

7 minutes late

Among the dead bodies, Pete and his brother looked up and saw a massacre. They were about seven and a half minutes late arriving on the beach, but as soon as they dropped the floater screen, incoming high tide flooded the engine compartment. Before they evacuate, they fired guns as long as they could!

They troop sergeant, who had safely landed his tank, reversed to them and took them on board, and then, amid all the shooting and mayhem, he calmly dropped them off by the sea wall. 33 out of 40 launched tanks survived and made a real contribution to the battle.

Hope in this one is strong

First night they prevail all mortar attack, waited in an orchard in Hermanville, digging a trench under tanks and convincing them self that they are safe from harm. But from that day they only slept in tanks. Trenches didn’t help a lot.

First day of war for them was over, a day for which they had trained as a crew for 2 years, and they succeeded… to survive. It never crossed their mind that we could lose the war, they were too young to think otherwise.

That’s a story of one of the first Sheman tanks crew, that landed in France, on D-day.



Inspiration text: https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/84/a2044784.shtml

Image: http://the.shadock.free.fr/sherman_minutia/duplexdrive/duplexdrive.html