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Praetorium Honoris

Wednesday, November 25, 2020

The Uncle

(Source)

Unteroffizier Manfred Sauer, 1st Platoon leader, his platoon messenger, Grenadier Stefan Holzbauer, and the leader of Sauer's 1st Squad, Gefreiter Karl-Heinz Köhler, were standing at the side of the muddy road leading from the nearest village into the forest. They were watching the crewmen of two of the Kampfgruppe's StuGs cutting branches and strapping them onto their vehicles in an attempt to break up the outline.

Sauer turned towards the village when he heard the engine on a Kübelwagen struggling through the mud on the road. He saw the little vehicle sliding around in the thick mud but making headway nonetheless. He wondered what the two men in the small car were up to and where they had come from. That's when he noticed the license plate on the front.

"Scheiße, it's the damned SS."

Köhler turned and saw the vehicle, he looked at Holzbauer and leaned over and told him, "Go tell the Major that the asphalt soldiers¹ are in town."

Holzbauer looked at Sauer, who nodded, then he hurried off to find Major von Lüttwitz, the Kampfgruppe commander.

"I wonder what these boys want, Opa." As the vehicle slid to a stop near the two men, an SS officer stepped from the car.

"Unteroffizier! Is this Kampfgruppe von Lüttwitz?" As he said this his arm swept over the vehicles and men scattered through the small clearing.

Sauer stood to attention, as did Köhler. "Jawohl Herr Standartenführer². How can we help you?"

As the SS officer removed his cap to brush his hair back, Sauer noticed that when the sleeve of his field jacket slid up, it revealed the cuff title on the man's tunic. These guys were not with the Leibstandarte but were with the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich. "We are looking for the men who were with Oberleutnant Herzig when he was killed. I am his uncle, SS-Standartenführer Walter Herzig. I received word just yesterday that the boy was killed in action. As we were not far away, I decided to come over and ask a few questions. That shouldn't be a problem, yes?"


The overcast was starting to break up. Captain Horace Miller of the 513th Fighter Squadron looked to his right to make sure his wingman was still out there. They'd nearly got separated flying through this soup on the way here. He was relieved that the weather boffins had actually gotten the forecast right for a change.

Miller heard the crackle in his headset as his second element leader checked in, "Blue Leader, Blue Three, I have you in sight, we're at your 8 o'clock low."

"Roger three, close it up, the clouds are starting to clear. The weather guessers nailed it, strong wind out of the west is pushing this crap over Hitler-land. Time to ruin some Kraut's day!"


As Sauer started to answer the SS officer, he heard the sound of engines, aircraft engines. "Everybody, off the road, cover!!" he bellowed. As he and Köhler dashed for the cover of a small stand of trees, he turned to the two SS men. "Hide you idiots! That's a flight of Jabos!"³

As Sauer and Köhler rolled in under the trees, Köhler looked back at the road. The SS colonel was shading his eyes from the increasing afternoon light as he tried to make out the incoming aircraft.

"Get down Standartenführer!!" Opa screamed at the man.


Miller had his gunsight pipper on what looked like an assault gun sitting on the track up ahead. Easing his stick down a bit further, he noticed that there were two assault guns and what appeared to be a car sitting on the track.

He pulled the trigger and watched as his rounds walked over both assault guns and then into a man standing next to the car. He had to wonder what that idiot had been thinking.


The first StuG hit by the American aircraft had no more damage than scratched paint, the angle had been too shallow. The second vehicle wasn't so lucky. A number of .50 caliber slugs tore into the engine compartment and started a fire.

Sauer heard the strikes on the two armored vehicles and looked up in time to see the SS officer get shredded by the machine guns of the strafing American P-47. His vehicle wasn't hit by the first aircraft, but it too was shredded when the second American aircraft fired. The driver was killed instantly and the small car was set on fire when a round went through the car's fuel tank.

Sauer buried his face in the ground, expecting the car to explode in flames. Surprisingly enough, it did not.

SdKfz 10/5 mounting a 2 cm Flak 38 cannon
Bundesarchiv

"Shit! Blue lead, break left, Kraut Ack-Ack in the woods!"

Miller pulled hard on his stick and shoved the throttle forward, he just had a glimpse of tracer rounds passing under his aircraft, Two had just saved his bacon.

His wingman wasn't as lucky, he had just started to break up and to his right when five rounds from the German anti-aircraft gun slammed into his engine. The big piston engine coughed once, then again, then caught and began to run, though roughly.

"Lead, Two, I gotta get this bird on the ground."

"Roger that, Blue Flight, Lead, let's go home."


"What the Hell was that?" Opa Köhler exclaimed.

Sauer turned from the spectacle of the two dead SS men and told Köhler, "One of the Major's new toys, they showed up this morning, two of 'em. Sonderkraftfahzeug 10 slash 5, that was a 2 centimeter pill that Ami pilot swallowed, damaged him but didn't kill him. Those 47s are tough birds.

"Yup, saw those f**kers in Normandy, killed most of my old unit in the Falaise Cauldron. Where the Hell did the Major find those?" Köhler had to wonder at the Major's ability to scrounge men and equipment for the Kampfgruppe.

"Apparently they were sitting on a rail siding with their crews. The guys were awaiting orders so the Major asked for them, the colonel running the railyard said to take them, he needed the rail cars they were on. So here they are. Oh, speak of the devil." Sauer stood, brushing the mud and dirt from his uniform as he did so.

"Herr Major." Sauer nodded at von Lüttwitz, then at the burning Kübelwagen.

"Who are those men, Manfred?"

"Apparently the one in the road was Herzig's uncle. He wanted to know what happened to his nephew I guess. We didn't get to tell him anything. Those Jabos came in, we dove for cover, and the NSFO's uncle just stood there, like it's a show or something." Sauer shrugged, as if he didn't care one way or another for the fate of two random SS officers.

Von Lüttwitz looked at his StuGs, the one which had been hit had smoke coming from the engine compartment, but the crew had extinguished the fire. No one in either StuG crew had been injured, but the vehicle with the damaged engine would be a problem, von Lüttwitz thought, where do I get parts for the damned thing?

As the Major went to check on his armor, Köhler looked at the dead man in the road, then turned to Sauer, "The Amis really don't like the Herzig family, do they?"

"Apparently not. Let's get the driver out of the car before he cooks. Then we need to get a detail to bury these two men. I don't want dead SS men stinking up our bivouac." As Sauer went to start pulling the driver out, it was another officer he noticed, he heard Opa say.

"Yes, dead SS men smell bad, even worse than the live ones, what would the neighbors think?"





¹ "Asphalt soldiers" was a derisive term for the SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, a unit which started life as Hitler's personal bodyguard. As such they pulled a lot of ceremonial duties in Berlin. The name may be apocryphal, but I've seen the term in more than one place.
² Colonel in the Waffen SS.
³ Jabo = Jagdbomber = Fighter bomber

Author's Note: The other day SCOTTtheBADGER mentioned the travel lock on the StuG IV. Me, in my awesome ignorance, went out for a casual once around the Internet and didn't see any combat photos of the travel lock on the StuG IV, so I assumed it was a "museum thing." What an arrogant ass am I! Since then I see those travel locks all over the place, especially on the StuG III! Look at the lead in photo on this post. Yup, travel locks. I have to remember not to pull the trigger on my comments so quickly. And not assume I know everything. Silly me...

Link to all of The Chant's fiction.

62 comments:

  1. I dunno, you comment made sense to me I had never seen one before either.

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    1. I learned something that day, couple of things actually. (A) StuGs have a travel lock and (B) I don't know everything.

      Live and learn!

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  2. I’m sure Das Reich was happy to get rid of those guys for a few hours...

    I half expected a “he was standing right there... no, a step to your left...”

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  3. Maybe the various folks running those museums know something after all eh Sarge? The amount of photos online.....if the Internet was around 50 years ago I probably would have never left the house back then given my interest in WWII things. Guess the dead Colonel didn't have any experience with Allied aircraft that resulted in him standing and looking rather than running for cover. German CAS was very rare prior to the Bulge. Nice twist in this installment Sarge.

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    1. Some of the photos I looked at didn't have it, but if you look closer, the bracket for it is there.

      In my mind the colonel was a veteran of the Eastern Front where Soviet air wasn't quite as pervasive as in the West. Rommel wanted the panzers close to the coast for the invasion because he didn't think they'd be able to move forward due to Allied air, something he was familiar with from Africa.

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  4. A Sonderkraftfahzeug! I have not seen a picture of one in years!

    Unfortunate timing - and an unfortunate gap in knowledge - for the Colonel.

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    1. I like those special purpose vehicles that were so prevalent in the Wehrmacht.

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  5. Empire of the Sun was the first time I heard the rapid slap of slugs in a movie. When I was a young man, we shot through an old abandoned house out in the county... for science... Hearing the slugs slap the walls as they passed through was quite the experience. I can't imagine 8 .50's blowing and going down the road. I guess Uncle Herzig was 'holey' taken off guard.

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  6. Two probable explanations for the nickname "Asphaltsoldaten/asphalt soldiers":
    1. the colour of their uniforms was black like asphalt
    2. they spent most of their time standing guard (on the asphalt of the capital) and not in the field

    Off topic: Another nickname for the Luftwaffe was "Schlipssoldaten" = tie soldiers. The Luftwaffe was the newest branch of service, they wore a very business-like suit as a uniform and they wore a tie. This was regarded with suspicion by the Heer soldiers who of course did not get such a spiffy uniform. Hence the name "Schlipssoldaten".

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  7. The Jug was a real mother, wasn't she :)
    If your experience has been looking spiffy while marching in parades, your combat reflexes will atrophy - if they even existed.
    Frank

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    1. The Jug was one Hell of a bird.

      The colonel was a veteran of the East, he wasn't used to the Allies air superiority in the West. Too late now!

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    2. Once the Jug got the new propeller, its climb rate sure got a speed boost :)
      Frank

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    3. Funny how that works, improvements on a basic solid design. We could learn from that with today's equipment.

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    4. You'd need a brand new and VERY large blog to discuss that one.
      Just don't call it Mother, Jugs, and Speed :)
      Frank

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  8. From Sniper Check to Jabo Check, the Herzig family isn't doing too well, no? What next, we find out that one drowned standing in a rain while watching it fall? Or didn't look both ways before crossing the road? Or went swimming right after eating? Maybe leaned his chair back? (That last one? How my grandmother's father died, so... well... um... yeah... it happens. And I come by my clutziness genetically.)

    Heck, you could do a whole episode of Herzig offings. One opens a tin and slices himself. Another is shaving and a bomb goes off and he cuts his throat. Another is playing with a grenade and counts to 5. Riding a horse and hits a low hanging branch. Riding a tank or assault gun and gets a tree-branch through the eye. Climbing up on a tank or assault gun and slips and brains himself. Working the target end of a target range and looks over the trench edge to see why no one is shooting. Out on patrol on the Russian Front and, all alone while going to the bathroom, steps into a patch of unfrozen muskeg and...(100 years later some former Soviet is cutting peat and finds him, with his pants down around his ankles...)

    I mean, the comedy gold is just right there for mining!

    Did you know there's a company selling fake StuG IIIs out there for movie or prop use. Runs on a 35hp Kohler engine. Or there was, since I canna find the link anymore. Full sized, sheet metal vs armor of course. Propane cannon. Woulda been neat to have. Of course, the real thing would have been neater...

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    1. I think Monty Python would have done an interesting treatment of the Herzig family.

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    2. Beans, as a thought exercise, what position would best suit you if you were in the German Army of WWII? NCO, officer, enlisted man with a specialty?

      I mean no offense and am not alluding to anything. Certainly not to be sinister. Quite simply, it occurred to me while reading the comments here. Each of us have a specialty and if we were allowed the opportunity to exploit that specialty, how would we go about it given our circumstances? In this case, because it is the subject at this point in Sarge's tale, the conditions are of the German Army. It is truly a 'what if I were there'?

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    3. Mortar maggot, or field artillery. Though maybe a StuG operator.

      All enlisted, with specialties.

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    4. I had a high school classmate who's older sister, in college, leaned back on a wood chair. It broke, and while falling, the jagged edge of on chair leg went up inside her rib cage. She survived, but it was a near thing.
      Frank

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    5. Beans - I kinda figured you for a redleg. Artillery is awesome.

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    6. There was a TV show a couple of years back called "1000 ways to die" that chronicled weird ways people met their end. And there are some VERY weird ways people die! Wrong place, wrong time - and "Hey'yall - watch this!" were both prevalent themes

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    7. (Don McCollor)...American POW...

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  9. Sarge, the following is a source I highly recommend. The only problem is I have been unable to find how to search his page.

    https://laststandonzombieisland.com/about/

    Those SS getting peeled off because of their dangerous arrogance is very satisfying. Not only because they were the worst of the Nazis but because of their conduct from thinking they are God's gift. I've had the misfortune to meet persons of that same style. In every case, one wishes their comeuppance be swift and deep affliction.

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    1. Added to the roll over there on the right. Lots of interesting stuff!

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    2. +1 on Last Stand on Zombie Island. A very well done and researched site with really, really, diverse content.
      JB

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    3. The thanks go to Chris, owner of the site. Time stands still when I scroll through his site. I only wish I could figure out how to search his site. Instead, I just read one posting after another. He is very well researched. Y'all talk about minutia, he's got it down pat. Really, an excellent website. And take a look at his CV. Impressive.

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    4. Very true, but you pointed us there.

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  10. Towards the end of the war somebody went to a P 47 squadron to film a “day in the life”. It was at Normandie and to see one of those things come in with it’s 8 .50 caliber is an attack a train was unbelievable. The locomotive literally blew up. But would 50 calibers destroy a tank?

    Look it up if you can because it’s in rare color

    Sure was an ugly plane but pilot swore by them.

    I was thinking head that uncle lived the SS could’ve made trouble by not forcing her to take to get down?

    When you interject politics anything can happen.

    It worked out well for everyone concerned.

    Except for the uncle 😀

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    1. I've seen that footage!

      Yes, and screw the uncle, and his driver. SS bastards.

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    2. "Ugly" is in they eye of the beholder,William. The P-47 is a brilliant aircraft; the turbo-supercharger is an amazing system in and of itself.
      Here's hoping the uncle hadn't bred before his timely death. Now if one of Beans creative checks could befall Vater at OKH (choking on his pheasant or something) it'd be a week for the herzig clan.
      Boat Guy

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    3. According to Jeff Ethell, the author of the book, The Victory Era In Color, color film in the combat theaters of WWII was not rare or unusual for the amateur photographer. The idea for the book came when he, himself a pilot, found himself in similar pose as his dad who had been a P-51 pilot. His dad was something of a shutterbug and wrote home to have color film sent to him. The son set out to contact other WWII-era veterans and their families requesting color photographs. The response was slow at first then became tremendous. In a few short years Mr. Ethell had so many color photographs (true color, not 'colorized') that he had a difficult time in selecting which photos would be included in his book. And still the photographs continued to pour in. His is an outstanding book. I am in the midst of packing boxes so am unable to find my copy of this engaging book. I strongly recommend anyone interested in WWII military history to add this book to their library.

      https://www.amazon.com/Victory-Color-Photographs-World-Years/dp/0898211271

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    4. On tanks, because armor weighs so much, armor to the front of both the hull and turret is the heaviest, and least heavy is the roof or floor, or over the engine compartment. Because tanks don't normally shoot other tanks from up high or down low.

      So a kill from the air using .50 cals is quite plausible. Early in the war a kill from a 7.92, 7.62 .303 or .30 cal was possible, but by '44 almost all armor was heavy enough to stop the roughly .30 caliber rounds.

      We, the USA, had .50 cals by the wazoodle load. Everyone else had to go to 20mm or larger cannon on their tank-busting aircraft.

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    5. Boat Guy - I've always liked the big, buxom P-47. Hell of a gal!

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    6. Rick - Color film was just rare for the government I suppose. (I'm sure black & white was cheaper in most aspects, which attracts government buyers, then AND now.)

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    7. Robert Johnson wrote an exciting book about his exploits flying the P-47 Thunderbolt. His book is titled, Thunderbolt! In it, Johnson recounts his incredible survival after having his aircraft being shot to hell again and again and again. His tormentor followed him back to within sight of the English coast. Mr. Johnson was also the first pilot in the ETO to break Eddie Rickenbacker's record for aircraft shot down.

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    8. I'm pretty sure I read that when I was kid. Might need to read it again!

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    9. (Don McCollor)...Do read it indeed! There is an episode in the book about a mock dogfight with a Spitfire that easily got behind him at first (should have been subtitled 'know your aircraft'). The Spit could beat him in a steady climb and out turn him. Instead he performed rolls that the Spit couldn't match increasing his lead. Then he dove (that a Spit could not match - the Spit floats down, with a Jug, the bottom just drops out). Then a zoom climb trading speed for altitude, and he was above and behind the Spit...

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  11. Just ordered Amazon's last copy (so they say) of Ethel's book. Was gonna put it on the Christmas list, but report of scarcity ruled.
    Boat Guy

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  12. Sarge, your writing keeps getting better! The pictures you paint and the characters you have created are multidimensional and real. You provide just enough detail for the reader to use their own imagination to fill in the blanks.
    Re: your experience with travel locks, ain't it a bi**h when you realize you aren't the all seeing, all knowing example of humankind that you thought you were? DAMHIKT. But it is good for the soul, or karma, or whatever ... and is what makes us human

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    1. Being humbled is good for the soul now and again. Like you say, it's what makes us human.

      And thanks.

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    2. (Don McCollor)...If you wish, I can provide an actual recipe for crow pie..

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    3. I like crows, but not in that way.

      Humble pie is best eaten alone.

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  13. On the color photographs I might have the same book. It is compiled of photos that the service man shot in what was fairly rare color for World War II. One photo I will never forget – well 2.

    One is an American squadron of Spitfire pilots.

    Yes there were spitfires painted an olive drab

    But the other is immediate post war and a line of mustangs in a German field and these German civilians are just cutting them up and burning them.

    Amazing what we consider just excess crap is now worth it’s weight in gold

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    1. One photo from the book is a picture of two WASP (Women Auxiliary Service Pilots), one standing on the wing, the other sitting in the cockpit of a fighter. The cute little blonde in the cockpit is one I'd like to have met.

      Some of the photographs are heartbreaking. A small girl and her younger brother walking through the rubble of their city.

      Contrast that to the service men finding time for some real R&R in theater. Made a boat out of a drop tank for fun.

      Depictions of war from many angles.

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  14. Here is the book I have Rick - OldAFSarge - you would both like it! If you lived closer Sarge I would loan mine to you

    https://www.amazon.com/Fighter-Command-American-Fighters-Original/dp/0879384735/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=fighter+command+robert+t+sand&qid=1606377264&s=books&sr=1-1

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  15. (Don McCollor)(not sure where to post this)...There was a old movie "The Misfit Brigade" [Eastern Front] when a tank of an SS Penal Battalion were ordered to bury the well dead body of a regular SS officer. They pledged do bury him with all the due respect and honor he deserved. When the office left, they drove one tread over the body and pivoted until they ground his body into to rubble...

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Just be polite... that's all I ask. (For Buck)
Can't be nice, go somewhere else...

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