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| Tiger tank “411” of 506. Schwere PanzerAbteilung¹, Ardennes 1944/45 (Source)² |
I heard back from Belgium very quickly, our new found colleague, the Belgian History Digger, sent me some photos of his finds and gave me permission to share them here. So, as promised ...
The following images are courtesy of the Belgian History Digger, who posts on Instagram at bastogne_battlerelics. (Lot of great photos on stuff still being dug up on an old World War II battlefield.) He also provided the captions on each photo.
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| Tiger 1 side skirt, damaged, late war model, deep at the bottom of a foxhole near the road |
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| Tiger 1 front/rear wheel shock absorber arm (big and heavy and completely broken in half!) |
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| Tiger 1 inner wheel part, late war " Steel wheels" type, also damaged |
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| Tiger 1 main battery terminal switch |
Now I'm going to inflict some historical background on you ...
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| T.O. & E of a schwere PanzerKompanie³ (Source) |
Both battalions operated the King Tiger, (Tiger II, Panzerkampfwagen VI Ausf. B and were composed of three companies of King Tigers each. After the start of the offensive a fourth company was added to the 506th, this was schwere Panzerkompanie "Hummel", which operated the earlier version of the Tiger, (Tiger I, Panzerkampfwagen VI Ausf. E). After being added to the 506th the company was numbered as the fourth company of the 506th, thus it's turret numbers would all be of the pattern 4##. These were the only Tiger I tanks to take part in the Ardennes offensive.
Ardennes
The 506th was one of two Tiger battalions to take part in the initial "Operation: Watch on the Rhine," the other being the 501st SS Heavy Panzer Battalion. The unit was transported to Eifel in preparation for the offensive, but orders were changed and the unit marched south before engaging in a skirmish at Andler on 17 December. The 506th and schwere Panzerabteilung 301 "Funklenk" were assigned to the 6th Panzer Army and on the 18th schwere Panzer-Kompanie "Hummel" was consolidated with the 506th. S.Pz.Kp "Hummel" had fought alongside the 506th previously during Market Garden. This formed the fourth company "Feuerwehr" (fire brigade) and reintroduced the Tiger I to the unit for the first time since being transferred to the Western Front. The same day, one of five Tiger IIs enroute to Lullingerkamp was destroyed at close range, forcing the others to withdraw. The unit saw further action later in the day, knocking out 3 tanks and 6 anti-tank cannons. Another Tiger was knocked out the next day when American tanks enroute to Bastogne engaged the 506th. (Source)
And those parts up there? Dug out of the Belgian countryside? Definitely a Tiger belonging to the 506th. They operated the only Tiger Is in the Ardennes at that time. There were less than twenty of those beasts in that fight.
I wonder which one it was ...
¹ Heavy Tank Battalion 506.
² The post which used that opening photo first is here.
³ Table of Organization and Equipment Heavy Tank Company, 1944
A big THANK YOU to Belgian History Digger! Great post, so much information is so little space.
ReplyDeleteI went to BHD's Instagram and was thinking, "Gee...it would be neat to be able to find stuff like that." Then, almost before that thought was finished, I was saying to myself, "THINK ABOUT THAT!!!!! You are extremely blessed to live in a nation that DOESN'T give you the chance to find stuff like that! " The horrors and destruction the people experienced is far too high a price for a few trinkets.
That's not to disparage people who live in such areas and have a desire to delve, literally to dig, into their history and try to make sense of it and piece together what happened. But I think sometimes we get a bit too complacent here in the States.
It's true, not being able to find stuff like that in our neighborhood is a good thing! The American Rule is fight your wars in someone else's backyard.
DeleteJoe - Depends on what area of the country you're in. Lots of stuff still being dug up in northern Virginia from the unpleasantness of 1861-1865.
DeleteRob - The reason we don't have a lot of military history in the US of A is because of those two big oceans to either side. It isn't so much a rule as a circumstance.
DeleteSarge, I thought of that, but even that shows how rare it is here in the States. We have the Revolution, War of 1812, War of 1861, and the Indian Wars. All fairly concentrated and limited in area. And while the War of 1861 is considered by some to be the first modern war, it holds few of the horrors of the mechanized and chemical warfare of The Great War and Second World War. Nor, other than the very limited English/Canadian invasion in 1812, no foreign invasion and occupation.
DeleteThe stuff being dug up here in the east certainly isn't tank parts, that's for sure.
DeleteI knew what you meant, just wanted to be clear that military historical artifacts do exist in these United States.
Now that's dedication to work like that to find bits and pieces and then research what they were, kudos to Belgian History Digger!
ReplyDeleteThey're doing some cool stuff in those woods.
DeleteThanks to BHD for being willing to share his photos! Very neat stuff indeed.
ReplyDeleteI never thought of battlefield archaeology in a modern light. A whole new field appears...
It's amazing the amount of stuff they find.
DeleteTB, there is a bunch of stuff on YouTube of WWII relic hunting in Eastern Europe.
DeleteThey don't show much scholarship, just relic hunting.
Ah, scholarship ...
DeleteA lost art for some.
Thanks to BHD for sharing his finds, and to Sarge for adding the context. It is obvious that I too share a fascination with relics with an identified history, so I like this too, with due respect for the humans involved.
ReplyDeleteGeneral George S. Patton's comment has a lot of truth in it- "No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."
John Blackshoe
Word.
DeleteI hope those doing the digging know some of that stuff can still go up with a boom. I speak as someone who did some 12B work in that area circa 1965.
ReplyDeleteYes, it may look old and non-functional, but it might go boom just fine.
DeleteThanks BHD and Sarge, for these posts. My main interests lie in the areas of the Middle East (Biblical Archeology), but these kinds of articles are so helpful in connecting real people with those things we only read about now.
ReplyDeleteBTW, God's providential positioning of these United States should give people real food for thought.
I often consider that.
DeleteWow, he wasted no time! Thank you, Belgian History Digger!
ReplyDeleteHe's very responsive.
DeleteOne of the many interesting aspects of visiting Iwo Jima where CVW-5 would conduct Field Carrier Landing Practice was all the relics still remaining from the bloody battle there. There were rusting relics of landing craft, caves full of things the Japanese used for daily life underground, a samurai sword (that was subsequently turned into the JPN Govt), and even morphine ampules.
ReplyDeleteIf people don't really live there (I don't recall if Japanese civilians returned to the island after the war) then things don't really get cleaned up. So I can well imagine lots of stuff still there.
DeleteNo, it is solely a base for us to conduct FCLPs (they built a replica of Atsugi CVW-5 spaces) with a small contingent of JN Navy for their MPA or SAR aircraft which aren't permanently based there.
DeleteThat's what I remember.
DeleteBelgium. The Cockpit of Europe.
ReplyDeleteRetired
It's also a convenient path between Germany and France. Which is probably why there has been so much warfare in that wee country.
DeleteVery interesting indeed, thanks BHD!! Back in 1979 I visited Papua New Guinea (my first ever overseas trip!) and the amount of relics from WW2 was just amazing, it was literally lying around wherever you looked. Visited Port Moresby, Lae and Madang, you could just bend down almost anywhere and pick up spent brass, walked the beginning of the Kokoda Trail (in those days no one was walking the whole trail). saw the remains of a Lightening fighter on an island in Madang harbour, also a floating crane that the Japanese sailed down from Singapore only to have the RAAF sink it with Hudson bombers a few days after it's arrival. The local villages would have piles of helmets, rifles MGs etc. that they found while clearing the jungle for their gardens, also a frightening amount of unexploded mortar bombs, grenades and the occassional 250lb bomb!
ReplyDeletePeople are still being killed by World War II to this day. Scary!
DeleteWW Chapter One still claims its victims. The Iron Harvest may kill a farmer on his tractor, or a UXO tech in the factory where they disassemble the time capsules. France has red zones where the fields are so poisoned by industrial quantities of explosive and chemical weapons that it will be centuries before that land will ever be considered suitable for human habitation. Nonne Bosschen near Ypres is still fenced off because the UXO count per cubic metre is so high. I have walked the fields of The Salient and seen suspicious circular patches where nothing grows. Somewhere under there is Something Nasty, and whether it kills suddenly by operating as intended with a century delay fuse or slowly by leaching into the foodchain, dead is dead. The Menin Gate Memorial has over 50k names of allied dead with no known grave, Tyne Cot Cemetary around the same. I have found rifle charger clips from both sides, spaghetti bundles of barbed wire, screw picquets and lumps of jagged lathe turned steel, and little bleached bits of bone, on walks around the famous places where a generation of young men died badly. God only knows what else is still underfoot. In my own present hometown, any significant construction earthwork has to be preceded by diligent investigation of wartime BDA photos and use of metal detection gear, and caution lest the old bit of iron pipe one digs up is not a 19th Century watermain but a 20th Century two ton bomb that didn't go off yet because an assembly line lass's eyelash got caught in the fuse. On the positive side, if at any time our population wakes up to the stealth genocide and fights back, grandpa's barn stashed Luger pistol may face off against a smuggled AK47M from a mosque stash, wielded by an imported Syrian goat felcher. Eventually, all accounts will be settled, no sin unpunished, but only when The Lord Jesus reigns....in the meantime, be careful.
DeleteThe fields were sown with Death and the Grim Reaper still collects.
DeleteAnd you're right, until Jesus reigns we need to tread carefully.