D-Day Panzer Soldbuch

Hans Reuper (°1925) started his military service in May ’43 with Pz Ers Ausb Abt 11, atrainings unit for tank crews based in Paderborn,with the 6[SUP]th[/SUP] company he is trained as a gunner.
After ending his basic training in October ’43 he is transferred to the 8[SUP]th[/SUP]company of Pz Rgt 100 (21 Pz Div), an armored division equipped with French “Beute” tanks that is based in France.
In the first weeks of May ’44, just before D-Day, Pz Rgt 100 is officially changed toPz Rgt 22 and they receive Pzkw IV tanks to replace the obsolete French tanks.
- Because of the allied invasion the divisional administration isn’t capable changing the new unit numbers on all documents and thus the old unit numbers will be used together with the new once during the Normandy campaign.
In this same period, May 19 ’44, Hans Reuper hands in his K98 rifle and gets a P38 pistol, this seems to indicate that he on that day became a gunner on one of the Pzkw IV’s of the 8[SUP]th[/SUP] company.
On D-Dayhis unit is based in Fresne La Mere, near Falaise, now it is serious, theallied invasion they have been training for has taken place; at 09.00 the II Abt (Major Vierzig) gets the order to move towards the allied positions north of Caen.
It is a small miracle, but despite the allied air superiority they manage to reach Caen without losing any tanks, north of the town they regroup to perform a counter attack.
The tank companies get the order to push towards the coast, in Bieville the tanks of the I Abt clash with British tanks that all ready have occupied the high ground, the tanks of Abt II have more success they are on the left flank of the advance and they drive in the gap between Juno- and Sword beach, through the villages Mathieu and Cresserons they reach the coast in Luc sur Mer.
Once again they regroup but an attack on the beaches controlled by the allies will not take place; when it is dark they retreat back towards Caen, there they will stay the next weeks.
It is verymuch possible that Hans was able to take a look at the allied invasion fleet, no doubt that it was a spectacular sight.

What has happened with Hans Reuper in the summer of ’44?
I don’t know exactly, the Soldbuch story ends on July 3 ’44 with a promotion to Gefreiter that isn’t confirmed on page 3.
His entire unit was destroyed in Normandy,but he isn’t listed as being KIA on the German war graves website.
The Soldbuch has been denazified, which suggests that it has been in allied hands at one time, so my estimated guess is that he was taken POW by the allies in the summer of 1944.

Also his Schießbuch was included in the little set, in it you can see that he was trained on the 75mm (long) canon)

Interesting

Peter U said:

Also his Schießbuch was included in the little set, in it you can see that he was trained on the 75mm (long) canon)

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Was issued a Walther (ac) P-38...Look like he turned in his bayonet also. I guess he could still be alive given his age.

Great post as usual.

awesome stuff peter thanks for sharing

Wow, that is an AWESOME soldbuch, I am very jealous!

I love Soldbuchs...and I am very much gaining appreciation for WehrpaB's too!

Peter i think why we all love your soldbuch posts so much is because that kind of information is something we all crave from our weapons, but is just impossible to find. Who had it, where it was, what it saw. Keep the posts coming.

Would you mind posting someday a more detailed set of photos/instructions with specifics on how to decipher soldbuecher?

P 38 not listed on web site

jack944 said:

Was issued a Walther (ac) P-38...Look like he turned in his bayonet also. I guess he could still be alive given his age.

Great post as usual.

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I checked P 38 AC 42 7303d with the guys on the P 38 forum, it has not been reported to them....its still out there somewhere..

also AC 42 8004a

No report on AC 42 8004a either..

John Lawson said:

No report on AC 42 8004a either..

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Thanks for the effort!




P

Thanks for the positive reactions!




Since I have the Soldbuch I have been doing some google searches and it turns out that the 8th company of Panzer Regiment 100 (22) was equipped with old Pzkw IV type B/C tanks armed with the obsolete short 75mm canon.
Just prior to the invasion they got a visit from a PK crew with a photographer.
On this website you can see the "then & now" pictures:
http://www.2iemeguerre.com/jemesouviens/stmartin.htm
I also found two allied pictures of knocked out Pzkw IV B/C in Normandy.


Also it seems that the 8th company tanks are a popular subject matter for model builders.





P

Short gun conversion

Peter U said:

Thanks for the positive reactions!




Since I have the Soldbuch I have been doing some google searches and it turns out that the 8th company of Panzer Regiment 100 (22) was equipped with old Pzkw IV type B/C tanks armed with the obsolete short 75mm canon.
Just prior to the invasion they got a visit from a PK crew with a photographer.
On this website you can see the "then & now" pictures:
http://www.2iemeguerre.com/jemesouviens/stmartin.htm
I also found two allied pictures of knocked out Pzkw IV B/C in Normandy.


Also it seems that the 8th company tanks are a popular subject matter for model builders.


I cannot believe they didn't try to convert them to the longer gun....I guess it was too difficult or they didn't have the resources.

Click to expand...

One thing to keep in mind about the guns....when the PzkW IV was designed it was mainly to fill the role of an infantry support tank...the PzkW III was the main tank to tank type. When designed, the long barreled 5cm gun on the III was adequate for most enemy armor, and the short 75 excelled at lobbing HE at enemy strongpoints.

Blitzkrieg tactics of course heavily depended on co-ordinated combined arms actions with mutual support....

Its sort of the same idea with the StuG's...originally they mounted the same short barreled 75, when their role was mainly infantry support....when it was discovered they excelled at anti-armor operations, they were upgunned to the long 75.

I think they kept the short barreled IV's to fill a tactical niche...plus they were building the long barrel IV's and StuG III's fast enough that they probably didn't have a surplus of guns....

In the spring of 1944 the German was runing out of resources fast, very fast.

The 21 Pz Div is a good example of this, prior to June '44 they had to use old French tanks and armoured vehicles that were captured during the Blitzkrieg of 1940, the 21 Pz Div wasn't fit to serve on the easternfront and because they were based in France they were very low at the material and equipment list.
The 21 Pz Div was kind of an exotic division with all kinds of strange, non standard (armored) vehicles.
When the Pzkw IV's were delivered in May '44, it was planned that the 8th company of Pz Rgt 100 would get Panther tanks instead of Panthers they also didn't get the newer F/G type Pzkw IV's that were delivered but some old B/C type Pzkw IV's that were badly damaged in the early campaigns but were recovered and repaired, they were so damaged that they weren't fit enough for an upgrade but at the brink of the big allied invasion in France these obsolete tanks that most likely had only an instruction role left in them were issued once again to a frontline combat unit.
Basicly the 8th company of Pz Rgt 100 got some old junk to replace some other old junk (the French tanks that were even more obsolete).
On the pictures in my previous post you can see that the Pzkw IV with the name Hedi hasn't even got a frontal MG anymore.
I presume that not only the short 75mm canon and thin armor made them obsolete in June '44 but also the mechanical side of these old and well used tanks was rather obsolete and causing a lot of mechanical break downs and such.

Once again some evidence that not the entire German WW2 army was equipped with modern equipment.

Peter, great stuff as usual, very interesting read, pics, and research. As far as what looks "cool" to me, the PzKw IV is probably my favorite German tank. Something interesting about them is that the Pzkw IV was probably the last German WW2 tank used in combat. Many were used by the Syrians against Israel in the 60s and 70s.