Yoozername
Posts: 1121
Joined: 3/4/2006 Status: offline
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An interesting PF action. Note that it penetrates the front of the sherman and the track 'added-armor'... This is from "The 12th SS The History of the Hitler Youth Division, Volume One," "Repelling the Attack on le Mesnil-Patry on 1 June 1944," page 219-20 as told by Pionier Horst Lutgens: "Our scouting party had dug in at an orchard...Suddenly, the Canadians opened fire on our front lines from all barrels...Almost immediately, Unter-scharfuhrer-Vogle who commanded the Zug, yelled: 'Tanks from ahead!' Then I could also hear the engine noise and the barking of the machine guns. 'Lutgens, Panzerfaust ready, let's go!' came Unter-scharfuhrer Vogel's voice. I was the only one in the Zug who had gone through extensive training with this weapon and knew it well. I had ben taught that detonators and explosives had always to be kept separately. Now we had a mess! Theory and practice are indeed quite different. I planned to overcome this later, if I was still alive. The detonator was with Walter Stinner, in his foxhole 20m away. In the meantime, the tanks were coming closer and closer. 'Lutgens, get out, attack the first tank!', Unterschar-fuhrer Vogel shouted urgently. Gathering all my courage, I jumped out of my hole and crawled, while machine gun salvos whistled above, close to the ground, to Walter Stinner. 'Walter, quickly, hand me the detonators!' He threw them over to me and shouted: 'Horst, good luck!'...I crawled back to my hole and grabbed my first Panzerfaust and made it ready. I had three of them in my foxhole. Then I looked for a victim. There it sat, the Sherman, huge and mighty. Its turret was pointed in the direction of our battalion command post. Its gun fired round after round...Now, there were even more tanks! One, two, three, four, five of these Shermans could be seen in the blue haze of the air saturated by gunpowder smoke. When I was within twenty meters, I aimed and fired. But nothing happened. Jam! Just what I needed! Once more, I cocked and fired. Jammed again! Now I was getting nervous. I cocked the weapon again and this time it roared off. I could not watch the hit. There tank providing cover had spotted me and was firing on me. I did hear the explosion, and then ran in zigzagging jumps back to my foxhole. All of a sudden, the Canadians turned away. I could immediately make out the reason for this. Three German Panzers had joined the battle. It was a feast for the eyes. Within a short time, six Shermans were in flames or had blown up.... After the powder smoke had lifted, I inspected 'my' Sherman. It had been hit form the front, directly under the driver's seat. The shell had drilled through a set of spare tracks and the armor."
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