--- Panzertruppen ---

Schwere Panzer Abteilungen

by Angel Iñigo

Schwere Panzer Abteilung 505

This is a tank battalion which reaped a lot of fame and victories. Among all combat units of its type, the battalion ranks third in effectiveness.

History

Created in Fallinbostel on January 29, 1943, by government order WK III Abt. Ib Mob. AZ II a Nr. 35/43 Gekados 457, select experts were taken from the 3rd and 26th panzer divisions. They were originally prepared to battle in Africa, but on February 20 an order came to reconfigure the unit to fight on the eastern front. On July 3, 1943, with Mayor Sauvant in command, the Kursk offensive provided the battalion with its trial by fire. On the first day of battle, twenty-seven Tigers in action destroyed forty-two tanks, of which fifteen were KV-ls. This operation broke down the Soviet's 15th Infantry Division and created havoc in the whole right flank of the 70th Army. All tanks of the panzer battalion were hit several times, but only one was ruined.

Advancing faster than expected, the combat unit was attacked on its flank on July 15, and it responded by sending two Tigers which repelled the attack. The German tanks remained unscathed as they demolished thirty-two T-34s in one hour near Werch Tagino.

On July 22, the battalion was pulled back to Iginka to engage in another defensive action. The 3rd Company began their offensive on August 4 by knocking out fourteen enemy tanks while receiving no damage. On the following day, however, Tiger number 333 was burned and abandoned-but not without first destroying fifteen T-34s. During the offensive, the battalion had only nine Tigers operative (seventeen were undergoing mechanical repairs), but in four days it managed to annihilate twenty-five Soviet tanks. On September 18, when all the Tigers were combat-ready, twenty-six T-34s were put out of commission. The Soviets did succeed in capturing tank number 200.

This type of scenario was common wherever any of the heavy-duty tank battalions were involved, because they were manned by the best personnel from the panzer divisions. Although it is true that these military units were an investment that yielded high returns, they drained other panzer divisions of experience and left them at the mercy of circumstances. It was fairly common for Panther and Pz IV battalions to be taken apart before even firing a shot, especially towards the end of the war when chaos reigned and the arrangement of combat units depended more upon veteran commanders acting at will than upon organized government mandates.

The tank battalions, despite the slow speed of their Tigers, continued to demonstrate great flexibility. Recognition of their high regard by the Wermatch came on January 31, 1944, after seven months at the front (of which forty days were spent repositioning). The unit was officially acknowledged for having eliminated 446 tanks during that time, and Oberleutnant Knauth was awarded the Knight's Cross for destroying sixty-eight T-34s in a single day, assisted by two other Tigers under his command. Days after being decorated he died in battle, and he continued to be recognized as the unit's top ace until the end of the war.

In 1944, the battalion engaged in numerous defensive battles which were highly successful relative to the losses suffered, but little by little its might waned, and in July of the same year it was hit head-on by the 1st Army of Belorussia's summer offensive. The nearly one hundred smoking tanks in the area surrounding Beresowize attested to the high price paid for the victory by the attacking forces, but the German battalion was virtually destroyed.

The scant remains of the combat unit were transferred to the rear guard and the re-supply and training zone at Ohrdruf where it was completely re-equipped with new Tiger II's. On September 21, 1944, it tested its new tanks in battle; twenty-four smashed T-34s and JS I's and Il's were the result. The German unit lost its first two tanks.

On October 16 the panzer battalion ellininated twenty-six more Soviet tanks. This time it was pounded harder than normal though nine Tigers were lost.

The war raged on relentlessly, and in spite of these isolated successes by the heavy-duty tank battalions, the German army began to fall apart in the east under the pressure of an army whose commanders, conscious of the tactical superiority of the Germans, determined to fight a strategic war. Despite the incessant pace of the war, this tactical superiority remained evident until the end of the conflict, and our battalion continued to batter away at the opposing forces. Between the 19th of January and the 5th of February of 1945, at a time when thirteen Tiger II's and four Tiger I's (from the aborted s.Pz.Ab 511) were operative, the unit destroyed 116 tanks and seventy-four guns. Sixteen Tigers were lost in the same period, of which four were abandoned in workshops and one was disassembled for parts.

On February 17, western Prussia was walled off and the end of the battalion was near.

In the area around Metgethen, the first German soil to be occupied by the Red Army, there came reports of constant atrocities and massacres of the civilian population. The 505 Panzer Battalion responded in unison with the equally decimated 52nd Infantry Division in a counterattack that freed the town and created a corridor 1.5 kilometers southwest to the town of Medenav. The soldiers evacuated the area of civilians and, despite constant air attacks, resolved to keep the corridor open at all costs. Six Soviet divisions sent to the area were incredibly held at bay for six days while other parts of Prussia were freed. As a result, more than 100,000 people were able to flee by boat, and the German forces directly helped over 12,000 people get from Metgethen to the seaports.

In these last battles, the battalion lost ten Tiger II's and all the Tiger I's. On April 6, crewmen without tanks together with mechanics, supply personnel, etc., fought as grenadiers as the last three tanks defended the Peyse peninsula.

On April 15, when gasoline and ammunition ran out, two of the Tigers were wrecked and abandoned, and all the crew members boarded the remaining tank and they headed towards Pillau to leave the area by boat. Soviet forces attacked as they retreated, however, and the commander of the unit and leading ace at that time, Oberfeldwebel Mausberg (with more than fifty victories) died in the action. Only a small group of men managed to reach Pillau and escape to Germany.

The battalion achieved an grand total of more than 900 triumphs over enemy tanks and 1,000 victories against guns.

Schwere Panzer Abteilung 507

The best materials German industry could produce and a select force of experts from the panzer divisions were brought together into heavy-duty tank battalions created to guarantee optimal results.

History

This unit, which was created by government order A.H.A. I to II Nr. 36.817/43 GEKADOS, on September 23, 1943, was supplied with men picked from the 4th Panzer Regiment (of the 13th Panzer Division) in Vienna and Bruim, Austria. It was inspected by Guderian in February of 1944, and after some maneuvers in Russia, it was assigned to the 357th Infantry Division of the XXXVIII Panzerkorps and went into combat for the first time on March 15, 1944.

On April 7th, 1944, two Tigers engaged and destroyed four T-34's and three SU 85 assault guns but received no damage. This was the first sensational operation of the battalion, and although it was not its best-known or most important victory, it does demonstrate a typical success achieved by the unit. Another example of the battalion's numerous feats was a series of defensive battles in the Swisloz area against the Soviets, in which the German unit put 36 tanks out of action while losing only thirteen. In a short period of time (by June 20, 1944) the combat unit had racked up 252 victories over Soviet tanks and 80 triumphs against hunting tanks and assault guns.

The most famous exploit of the battalion occurred in a counterattack against the Soviets which began early in the morning of January 14,1945, and lasted four days. A near 30 Tigers put a total of 106 enemy tanks out of commission This tactical triumph was a strategic disaster, however, and in the end the Gerrnan forces paid a high price. The Soviets, pressing upon their flank, forced them to abandon and destroy nineteen Tigers, and the rest of the tanks in operation were lost in the retreat. The only ones which remained were five broken-down tanks which had not engaged in combat.

The most distinguishing feature of this battalion was that it was the last one to use the Tiger I as its only tank. After this battle, however, it was finally rebuilt with Tiger II tanks. The change was only partial, though, since only the 2nd and 3rd companies were modified; the 1st company was reconverted into an armored infantry battalion, and three Jagdpanthers were incorporated into one of the squadrons of the second company.

As soon as it was re-equipped, the unit was rushed to the western front to hold off the American forces threatening to surround the Ruhr industrial valley. Joined by reinforcements from the Panzer 55 Academy, a counterattack was begun to the east of Paderborn, and it was here that a peculiar and dramatic event occurred. On March 30, 1945, the battalion captured Division General Maurice Rose, the head of the American 3rd Armored Division, and he died, apparently by error, at the hands of soldiers of the 507. When the American troops were informed of the incident, they retaliated by killing approximately 100 German prisoners.

When the battalion was finally completely destroyed by allied air forces, it was rebuilt with remnants of other units, but instead of Tigers, it was made up of the less prestigious Flakpanzers and Hetzers. Sent to the front again, it surrendered to American forces almost without fighting, but since the United States did not recognize the battalion as a western front adversary, prisoners were turned over to the Soviet army, where, as in many other cases, they would spend the next fifteen years in prison.

The Schwere Panzer Abteilung 507, in thirteen months of existence, had a performance record of over 600 destroyed enemy tanks, compared to its own 96 tanks lost in the same period.