Memoirs of a Tiger commander

[Dowly]

I'll post more shortly.

[Dowly]

The Major stopped in today for an update on his Tiger and after showing him the latest pics, I showed him a couple of books that had some photos that I thought he might be interested in. While thumbing through the Concord Panzers in North Africa, he stopped me and said turn the page back, that's me!


Oh Strukt, he said the Stuart had a wrecked motor from a Pak hit. While it didn't burn, the crew bailed and got back to their unit. They drained the fuel out of it, took whatever goodies they could find and left it.
He did say that they were very fond of the British Desert boots because they had crepe soles and kept the heat away from your feet much better than those hi top canvas boots the DAK got issued. He also said that you were better off in sandals than to wear the normal jackboots because they had iron hobs in the soles for traction and the metal conducted heat into the boot to bake your feet.
Whenever possible, they wore shorts, or even stripped down to skivvies in the heat. It did (does) get pretty cold in the desert at night too, which made for quite a mish-mash of uniforms. I guess a lot of guys wore Italian gear too because they had the most comfortable tropical uniforms.

Stankyus asked about ammo load outs;
Lindemann says that they carried 90 rounds of 88mm ammo, usually 30 AP. 30HE, and 30 dual purpose rounds, unfortunately he couldn't remember the actual designations for the round. He also said that since they had ammo trucks following them around that they would trade rounds to get the load out that they thought they would need for any prospective engagement, so, theoretically they could have all AP or HE or whatever mix they wanted. They also carried 40,000 rounds of MG ammo and 4 mp-38 or mp-40 with 8 clips per smg. He personally carried a Walther P-08 with 4 clips and the other crew were allowed to carry handguns if they wanted to.

Schuster and Rdiggety asked what he thought about Allied armour;
Stuarts and armoured cars were used as scouts and the Tiger guys didn't worry much about them except as they might call in support. The 75mm tanks (Grants Shermans etc.) were not anything to worry about either per se. You just had to be careful around them and never let them get position on you. Usually this was not a problem because you always had infantry nearby and artillery to back you up, so as long as you didn't get too far out on your own you were pretty safe. He had a healty respect for the Brit ATGs but not so much for their armour. He said their tankers had a lot of guts and pretty good tactics (mostly) but you could punch a hole in anything they had pretty easily. This meant that they would never engage you frontally if they could possibly avoid it, but would try to distract you while they slipped around on your flanks.
The LRDG were the guys that annoyed them most because they were always sneaking around trying to destroy the Afrika Korps supply dumps, and they NEVER had enough of anything to spare as it was. If a panzer was going to be shipped back for repairs, crews would strip it of any spare parts they thought would be useful.

His last crew (member changed from time to time) were all oberfeldwebels, they tended to get the more experienced crews to serve on the Tigers.
He said that every one of them had Iron Cross first or second class. They all wore the A.K. sleeve ribbons (3 months service in theatre) as well as Panzer badges.

Since I have been working on the figures lately, I spent some time asking about uniforms and what crews might be expected to wear. I had read something to the effect that crews were forbidden to wear shorts or remove their shirts for too long. Obviously the idea was to prevent troops from getting too sunburned to be useful. In fact it quickly became a courts martial offense since you were actually damaging wehrmacht property....
It turns out that this rule only applied to infantry. Panzer crews were allowed to wear shorts and shirtsleeves since the inside of a steel box with a twelve cylinder engine running in the back and a desert sun blazing down at you, is not exactly the coolest of environments...
Ever see that photo series on the guy frying an egg on the hull of his tank?

Something else he mentioned while we were talking about 'damaging Reich property'. The desert was (is) a hard place to live without proper equipment and guys got sicknesses that were untreatable with the early medical set ups that the Germans used in the early parts of the Afrikan campaign. The normal routine would be to fly patients back to German hospitals, sometimes all the way back to Germany.
Jaundice was one of these conditions, and some bright lad found out that if you left a tin of sardines out in the sun all day, you could punch holes in the tin and suck out the hot olive oil which would give all the signs of a jaundice attack. You would then be sent back to Germany for a nice refreshing leave until your 'Jaundice' cured itself. Naturally, the higher ups figured this little game pretty quickly and if you got caught it was considered a courts martial offense. Pretty slick trick for the first couple of guys though....

German prisoners held in Michigan had a fair amount of freedom and were often assigned to work details on farms surrounding the camp. The soldiers who were meant to guard them were usually pretty green and pretty young. When they left camp they were given their lunch in a paper bag, sandwiches and what not usually, and the farms were supposed to supply them with water.
Guard duty was dull and with not a lot else to do and one day both their guards fell asleep over the lunch break. POWs being what they are Lindemann and his comrades decided that here was an opportunity that couldn't be missed and they immediatley stole the guards rifles, disassembled them and hid the various parts in their pockets and nearby trees. Then they all sat back down and one of them bounced pebbles off one of the guards helmet until he woke up. The poor guy immediately noticed he was missing his rifle and woke up his buddy now also weaponless. The two guards knew they were in deep trouble and pleaded with the POWs for their weapons back. Lindemann said "Well, we can probably make a deal here, there is a little store about a mile down the road, go get us a case of beer and four cartons of ciggarettes....." Not having much choice the kid trudged off down the road. When he finally got back, the prisoners handed back the weapons in exchange for the beer and smokes. Except, they didn't give back the ammunition. When the guards objected, Lindemann and the rest of the prisoners grinned at them, Lindemann pointed at the guard who had stayed behind the first time and said "OK your turn to go to the store..."

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That's enough for now, just woke up so, need to get me a cup of coffee and something to eat. The next bit will be a big one, the OP went into one of Lindemann's lectures and quite a few stories came out of it.

[Onkel Neal]

Very nice, Downly


Posted on Tanksim News.

Neal

[Dowly]

Dont know how much I can continue this.. kinda fighting over my right to use the signature that Torplexed made for me (the one with me as a ferret flying an brewster buffalo and throwing bombs). Anywho, the moderator is saying the signature has an swastika in it and there's nothing that get's me more ticked that some twut getting the Von Rosen cross & swastika mixed.

I replied to the moderator and explaing what the "swastika" in my signature means, if he doesnt get it, then.... well.. dont think I can say it here what I'm gonna do next.

EDIT: THis is the signature in question:

[Dowly]

Many bad words.... etc

[Dowly]

Ok, this next one is notes the OP wrote furing the time he was listening to the lecture of Lindemann.

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To set the scene a bit, the British had just failed to pull off 'Operation Battleaxe' (an attempt to relieve Tobruk) losing almost 80% of their tanks. The Germans lost 62 tanks but managed to recover 50 of those to fight again.

On arrival in Libya, Lindemann spent his first two months assembling and training a panzer company for the planned November attack to crush the besieged town of Tobruk which had been cut off by the Germans and now lay 70 miles behind the front lines. (Lindemann said that one of the punishments for screwing up in training was being made to jog along behind your tank carrying one of the spare road wheels!)

The biggest difficulty was lack of supplies. Fuel, ammunition and vehicles were having a very tough time crossing the Mediterranean sea due to British submarine and air attacks. The Germans were recieving about 72,000 tons of supplies per month (including only 35 Flak 36 guns all summer), which was not enough to get by on. By November 18th (according to my sources) DAK only had 35 PzII, 58 PzIII, 17 PzIV, 12 Flak 36 and 96 Pak 38 AT guns. The Italians could only field about 140 tanks, mostly M-13s. Other vehicles including captured British equipment helped bulk out the force.

In November a combination of bad weather along the coast and the fact that NO supplies had made it across the Med that month forced Rommel to postpone the attack on Tobruk until Dec3. About the only action was a recce mission to investigate a large supply dump that suggested that the Brits were building up for an assault. While the recon team was almost destroyed during this probe, they did discover that the supply dump was a dummy and captured a South African command tuck which contained orders concerning British withdrawals and made no mention of any planned attack. (these orders were fake, meant to fool the Germans.)

The British had other ideas however and launched 'Operation Crusader' with 724 tanks, 201 of them infantry tanks and the rest cruisers, on November 18th. Designed to do what 'Operation Battleaxe' had failed to do, only on a larger scale, the operation was meant to both relieve Tobruk and drive the DAK out of Cyreniaca. The Germans had no warning of the impending attack until some units of 15th panzer on patrol near Sidi Omar ran into lead elements and reported them as a "Reconaissance in Force". (it was still being called that after two days of heavy fighting). One of Rommels few mistakes. The Brits and Commonwealth forces advanced quickly until they ran into the effects of the weather on the coastal areas.

General Cruwell decided that this was the line of the British attack and ordered von Ravenstein to form a special force- 5th Panzer Regiment with 12 10.5cm howitzers and 4 Flak 36- to move south from Gambut (where the main German supply and repair area was), to Gabr Saleh to attack the British 4th Armoured Brigade there. This unit was called 'Kampfgruppe Stephan' after its commander.
Chasing 3rd Recces armoured cars and doing recce sweeps themselves had broken up 4th Armoureds units. Kampfgruppe Stephan first encountered the 8th Hussars late in the afternoon on the 19th, northeast of Gabr Saleh. In the vicious firefight that followed, 20 Stuart tanks were knocked out mostly by the 88s which were using a new tactic of firing from their trailers.
This was the first time this had been done although 88s had been used at Arras in France as a despiration measure against Matildas and again at Halfaya pass. This was the first time they had been fired from trailers however. It worked very well, the guns could fire, move quickly to another position and fire again. (Lindemann said that this bent the early trailers and later trailers were made much heavier to allow for this.)
5th RTR was called up to assist the 8th Hussars and promptly lost another 3 Stuarts although 12 of the knocked out tanks would later be recovered. Kampfgruppe Stephan lost only 3 tanks with 4 more damaged but recoverable. The two sides withdrew from each other as darkness came on but Kampfgruppe Stephan who had planned to move to Sidi Omar was stuck awaiting fuel from its supply columns.
The rest of 15th and 21st panzer were moved south in the night to support Kampfgruppe Stephan. At dawn on the 20th of November, elements of the 4th Armoured Brigade re-engaged Kampfgruppe Stephan in what would turn into a running battle with Stephan doing a fighting withdrawal to the northwest. Knocking out 8 more stuarts and losing 4 tanks themselves (2 of which were PzIIs) The unit retreated to its rendezvous point with 15th and 21st panzer. The British, thinking they had beaten them, followed only to be engaged by the 15th panzer. 21st having had to stop to refuel.
15th and 21st panzer were ordered to disengage and move west to strike at the 7th Armoured Brigade and other units drawn up at Sidi Rezegh just south east of Tobruk. Moving out in the dark just before dawn on 21 Nov they were so quiet that 4th Armoured brigade (and the 22nd who had by now arrived in support), didn't even realize they had left until dawn light showed the last unit disappearing westward.

The 21st of November had started for the 7th armoured brigade at Sidi Rezegh being ordered north to meet the Tobruk breakout force at El Duda. The British assumed the the retreat earlier meant the end of the German threat in the area. However, just before the attack was supposed to begin, two large German armoured formations appeared on their right flank. This was 15th and 21st panzer in full attack. 7th Armoured Brigade was forced to split its formation with the 7th Hussars and the 2nd RTR moved east to meet them leaving the 6th RTR alone to lead the charge for Tobruk. This move cost the 6thRTR 39 tanks to the field guns and 88s that formed the outer ring of the besiegers forces. 7th Hussar and 2ndRTR fared no better with the 7th nearly being wiped out by 21st panzer in a running fight that made good use of pak and flak guns moving and shooting. By the end of the day only 12 7th Hussar tanks, some damaged, were left running.

This was Lindemanns first combat action and he and his unit did well, knocking out nearly 30 British and Commonwealth vehicles with very few losses to themselves. Another 16 tanks from the 21st panzer attacked the 7th Hussars support group near the Sidi Rezegh airfield. This unit met with less success as they met 25lber guns manned by 60th Field Regiment and were beaten back. A Stuka attack on the guns was unsuccessful due to inaccurate bombing. A British counter attack by 5 Support and HQ company Crusaders was also unsuccessful as all were hit. Fire from the 25lbers continued to hold off 21st panzer but both sides were running low on ammunition and with the arrival of the 22nd Armoured Brigade from Gabr Saleh made the Germans decide to withdraw.
2nd RTR was engaged by 15th panzer and suffered much the same fate as the 7th Hussars.
Rommel in the meantime, had got together a scratch force from the Gambut repair facility and used them to repulse the British breakout attempt from Tobruk at El Duda.


At this point British XXX corps had suffered badly but incomplete intelligence from the front convinced the 8th Army Commnader that things were going well except for the failure to link up with Tobruk and he suggested that the 1st South African Division be brought up from Bir Gubi to aid in the next mornings attack.

DAK commanders decided to disengage and reposition themselves overnight with the 15th panzer being sent to a position east of the British and south of Gambut and the 21st being set up on a line facing south along the escarpement from Sid Rezegh to Belhamed and between the British and Tobruk. The British, including the 22nd Armoured division, seeing these movements interpreted them as a withdrawal from the fight and stayed near the Sidi Rezegh Airfield.
Rommel deciding the chance was too good to miss, told Von Ravenstein to attack the airport in the afternoon of the 21st.
With fire support fron Artillery Gruppe Bottcher (a company Rommel had assembled to bombard Tobruk), the 21st panzers 155th rifle regiment attacked from the north engaging the British infantry protecting the airport while one battalion of 15th panzer swept around and attacked from the west. iIn the dust, smoke and confusion the British even fired on approaching tanks of the 4th Armoured Brigade br mistake as they came in to counter attack. It was all too much for the British and they had no choice but to withdraw from the airport to the south over a protecting ridge. As dusk fell however, 15th panzer came roaring in from the Northeast causing extra chaos. By the end of the action 22nd Armoured Brigade was down to 34 running tanks an 7th Armoured had only 15. German losses were very light. As a bonus, 15th panzer also captured the HQ and Staff of the 4th Armoured Brigade during the night attack, but this was more than offset by the capture of the DAKs entire communication center and staff and codebooks from their base near Gambut by the 6th New Zealand Division.

[Dowly]

The 23rd of November was a Sunday Totensonntag (Rememberance Sunday)in the German calender. Rommel ordered the destruction of the remaining 7th Armoured by encircling them. 15th panzer plus 21st panzers 5th Panzer Regiment came down ffrom the North, sweeping west and joining up with the Italian Ariete division coming up from the south west.
The British were decimated, but at a severe cost due to poor management of the northern attackers, the Germans losing 72 out of the 162 tanks that attacked. Lindemann said he remembered the day as incredibly hectic, they fired as fast as they could pick targets, the tommies were running everywhere.
Rommel decided to capitalize on the destruction and dissarray of the British by making a spectacular dash towards the Egyptian border in his command car leading the 15th and 21st panzer in a diversionary sweep along the coast. At one point his column was 40 miles long.
Back in the border area, things were quiet Cunningham and his corps commanders were having a conference near the border and staff cars and trucks were parked everywhere.
Suddenly, out of the blue came Rommel and his tanks bearing down on them. In a mad dash (later jokingly called the Matruh Stakes), everyone including the Generals, scattered and ran east for the border.
Unfortunatley for the Germans the DAK was too depleted for Rommels sweep to do much more than psychological damage, although they did finally figure out how to tackle the 25lbers that had been troubling them. By giving the batteries a plastering from the 75mm guns of the PzIV firing HE they could kill or drive off gun crews then the tanks would roll over the guntrails crushing them.

'Operation Crusader' had been badly handled by Cunningham and Auchinleck used it as an excuse to relieve him. Both sides were badly battered afterwards and Rommel decided to cut his losses and withdraw to El Agheila where he had started back in February. So in spite of the loss of most of the battles, Operation Crusader actually achieved it's goals of liberating Tobruk and kicking th DAK out of Cyrenaica.

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

Very nice, Downly


Posted on Tanksim News.

Neal

Thank you NEIL!

@Puff

I browsed thru the thread, and didnt see anything about the reload times. But what I picked off from some documentary was that some tanks had extra shells on the floor of the tank, making them easily accessable.

[Dowly]

Lindemann, had originally intended to be a pilot and he knew several fellows who later went on to become aces. One of theses was Hans Joachim Marseilles, sometimes known as the 'Star of Afrika'. Marseilles was known as a ladies man and a heavy party boy, even to the point of missing a morning flight by being too hungover to fly. I suppose the Higher ups tolerated it because he brought results on his missions bringing down enemy planes with as few as two or three rounds. He often brought his plane back with multiple kills and left over ammo in the guns. A master of the deflection shot, one of his wing men told a story of him bringing down a Spit V with one single round of cannon in the Spits engine while in a steep turn.
The story Lindemann told me about him was that they were chatting about aircombat during a drunken beach party and Marseille told him he had found a way to turn inside those pesky Spitfires. Marseille said that what he had done was to split the landing gear hydraulic system on his 109 with a pump for each gear. He could then partly drop whichever gear he wanted to in order to turn faster in that direction.

I am certain he knows Carius's exploits, he lent me a couple books on Tiger Aces.
Wasn't Carius SS? I don't remember off the top of my head.
Lindemann seems to have a rather curious attitude toward SS guys. The times he's mentioned them, I get the impression he thinks that they were far too hardcore. People whom it was best to stay away from. He certainly admires the big Tiger aces though.
You know, it kind of feels to me like he regrets not making it out of Afrika and missing the rest of the war. I am pretty sure he would have regretted it if he HAD made it out to rejoin the rest of the Wehrmacht.
I am certain that he still believes that what he was doing was right. He wasn't a fan of the National Socialists and at one point described Hitler as "Crazy as a bedbug!"
Africa was a different kind of war, a 'clean' war if that's possible. Very few civilians were involved. Most of the time troops were out in the middle of nowhere with nothing around for hundreds of miles. Guys depending on each other for their lives everyday for years develope a special cameradery and I think he still misses that. In spite of the blood and death of war I think he still thinks of those times as the best part of his life. It was when he himself had the most impact on the world.
I think he still misses that....

For those guys that asked, unfortunately he never met Von Luck or Knappe or Carius, although he is certainly familiar with them. He has a copy of Von Lucks book he said, so I'm sure he's read it.

Aismov, when I asked about Col. Kriebel, he said yes he met him a few times. As Rommel needed, units were transferred between 15th and 21st Panzer and Lindemann met him a few times at briefings. He said he hadn't read Kriebels book because he hadn't heard about it, but he is going to look for a copy.

His Kreigschule was in fact at Potsdam and afterwards at Doberitz (you German guys don't give any crap about my spelling, I got no umlauts!). What year was Knappe at Potsdam?

Wolf326, when I asked about strafing planes killing tanks, he said he'd never seen any rifle calibre stuff penetrate. He said that they did sweat air attacks though. Planes would spray mg fire around to keep the tanks buttoned up and infantry under cover until the fighter-bombers could drop bombs on 'em. If they were moving, the tankers would just keep moving if they could, the trucks and stuff would catch up later.
When the Brits got the 40mm armed Hurricanes, that really made the tankers sweat. Even if it wouldn't penetrate everything it could certainly break track if the pilots got good hits. (Brit pilots were trained to 'walk' their rounds into a target. It wasted a good bit of ammo though and a lot of pilots didn't like doing it that way.)
He said they really didn't see a lot of enemy air though. The DAK spent a lot of time in the deep desert and you had to find them before you could attack them. When they did get discovered though it meant you were gonna get bombed and strafed just as hard as they could. Then all you could do was wait it out and try to move the unit under the cover of darkness. He did say that their SPAA saved them on more than one occaision. (I have a convoy story that I will relay a bit later.)

HTMD, he said he is from Franconia himself, (is that a county name?) He is still planning on heading home sometime soon, maybe you'll get a chance to meet him yourself!

[Dowly]

Earlier in this thread I said that Lindemanns turret number was 112. This was incorrect, that number appeared on a PzIV that he was assigned to before he got his Tiger.
Markings on his Tiger were DAK palm on glacis left of drivers viewport, balkenkreuz on hull side, midway along. Turret numbers were 111 in black with a white outline. On the back of the turret on the "rummelbox" (not sure how to actually spell the word he said but it was pronounced 'roomelbachs', can one of you German guys help me out with that?), anyway, on the equipment box mounted on the back of the turret, was stenciled KG-N in black, all caps, no outline. KG-N stands for "Kampf Gruppe Nord" and refers to the Gruppen formed by Rommel for the battle of Kasserine pass. This is the gruppe known to the men of that KG as "Kampfgruppe Lindemann". It was a fairly common practice to name a gruppe after it's commander. I have also seen the gruppe refered to as "KG-Gerd" as well.

After his capture (and I will deal with all this in more detail as I actually get on with writing his story), and since he was pretty severely wounded, he went first to the Tommies field hospital but was quickly moved on to a city (I think he said Constantine), from there he was shipped to New York (he was pretty doped up throughout this and he may have changed ships a couple times, hard to tell...). From New York he was shipped to Kansas City, (any KC guys tell me if there is a Hospital or something named "General Winders" there?) After recovering to the point of being releasable, he was sent to Camp Phillips in Kansas. He wasn't there long before someone pointed out that he was an officer and this was an enlisted POW camp, so, his next stop was Camp Carson which I believe was in Texas. There in Texas, he met up with other officers from his command for the first time in more than a year. Not only his fellow officers but every Tiger tank the the Americans had been able to drag there! "They wanted us to put together a running Tiger for them, but no one would co-operate." After some time in Texas, he and some other officers were moved to Camp Custer in Michigan. He was Ranking officer there and had a U-Boat exec as his second. That's where he was when the war ended.
He went home shortly after the war with Japan was concluded and returned here to Grand Rapids in 1953 where he has been pretty much ever since.

ismov, when I asked him how tankers kept cool he basically laughed. "We are sitting in an iron box, in the desert, with an enormous motor behind us making more heat. The only place we had ever seen airconditioning was at the cinema."
He said that whenever he got a chance he would volunteer to take the northern flank of a movement, as that put his unit closest to the Med coast where conditions were a bit more comfortable.
Night time was less of a problem obviously, as temperatures tend to dip rather precipitously in the desert after dark.
I asked about water and mentioned that the British 8th army got a ration of one gallon per, day per man, for all purposes. His reply was that the Tommies had it easy, DAK got one Liter per man, per day, for all purposes. If you wanted a wash or shave you'd better hope you were close to the coast. Oh, and you don't spit when you brush your teeth.
Initially at least, water was carried in jerry cans on trucks back and forth between supplies and units. Later tanker trucks were used as you could haul more water that way and a unit would refill the cans they had.
Food was always a problem too. Rations tended to be canned sausage and potatoes, canned beans, canned fish, a bread ration as often as the bakers could manage and whatever they could scrounge. Unless they were in the deep desert, arabs alway turned up to sell the troops anything they could. Lindemann said they would just wander in through the German perimeters and suddenly there would be a bunch of them setting up a bazaar. Some of the foods were a bit suspect however. One of his crew came up to him one day and asked if he thought that a carcass being sold would be edible. Inspecting it closely, Lindemann turned back to the guy and told him "We don't eat dog meat." Still, desparate times...


Mcdeath and a couple others asked about awards;
Lindemann was allowed to pick his personal crew, all were at least OberFeldWebel and everyone had at least Eisenkreuz First or Second Class. Lindemann himself was up for a Ritterkreuz near the end but his commander kept putting it off. "There will be time later." he said. If I understand correctly, you needed both First and Second Class Iron Cross to be eligible for the Knights Cross. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) for him, his war ended before the paperwork went through...


Werwulf, I'm sure you can imagine how rare a DAK guy is here in the states. Lindemann said that as far as he knew, he was the last survivor of his Kampfgruppe.
If any of you guys out there are aware of any other survivors, most likely in Germany, possibly South America, he would be grateful I am sure, for the information.


Ron, when I asked why he came back to the U.S. he said that he had gotten his engineering degree and was trying to find something that would pay him decently. He and some others had a 'too good to be true' offer in Caracas, and after that fell through he went to the states. The money here for an engineer after the war was pretty darn good and so, he stayed. Among other things he was one of the guys who did design work on the Abrams, and insists that he's the one who made sure it used a steering wheel for turning just like the Tiger.