Hans Boche My Story (3) After the week-end pass we were at last re-assigned to an armoured brigade of our 'Das Reich' Division. We vacated our barrack for the next lucky intake and were taken by truck to the Tank School which was only about a kilometer away and on the same site. Such was the routine and size of the place that in the previous month we had never met any soldiers other than new recruits like ourselves, though we knew that Infantry and Tank training was at this same camp. Artillerymen had a separate training camp about ten kilometers away where they had some open space for their shooting. In the Armoured Division training barracks at Krefeld we still saw no tanks! They were at the tank grounds in the Sauerland Hills at a place called Gummersbach. We first had to have two weeks theoretical training in the classrooms. We were assigned our tank stations before any practical experience. I suppose the principal was that we could be changed over later if any round pegs were in square holes. I was made a driver, because of my engineering skills I suppose. I was very happy about this because in a tank at least I would have something to do most of the time. The tank had to be driven, in or out of action. All of us also had to learn the rudiments of the other crew members' duties, gunner and loader, and the tank commander/radioman. This latter was usually an NCO (Sturmbannfuhrer - equivalent to Sergeant). No one was promoted yet. This would come at the end of the six weeks training at Gummersbach. We had a gun in the classroom, a 50mm cannon, with wooden shells. The same as in the Panzer Mark III. (Not the shells) We learnt to operate it as quickly as if our lives would depend on it, for the good reason that they would. We had radio sets in the classroom too, both long distance and tank to tank. A visit from a maintenance tank engineer bored the others but I was fascinated, as he knew all the strengths and weaknesses of the Panzer Mark III. For example, the engine did not mind revving hard, but the clutch was often burnt out by unsympathetic use. The clutch was transmitting hundreds of horsepower and moving fifteen tons of metal. It wanted to be in or out, no holding out, no slipping, and it lasted for ever. I can say with pride I never burnt out a clutch on any Panzer that I drove though I saw many who did, and in dangerous places. We were very excited when we were first taken by bus to the tank training grounds. A squadron of Panzer Mark III's were manoevering on the hills. We learned with disappointment that these were manned by an earlier class and we wouldn't get our hands on these yet. We were started on a motley group of six obsolete tanks. Four were made in Russia, I think to Skoda pattern. I believe this was done because the ridiculous terms of the Great War Armistice stopped us making our own tanks, while every other nation seemed to be able to do what it liked. I suppose the object of that was to keep us down. The Fuhrer, seeing the danger all round us, soon changed all that. There were also two old French Renault tanks, very large and heavy, Char B I think they were called. I was assigned to a Renault first and the instructor sat outside holding onto the gun showing me the basic controls. I learnt to drive it easily enough though all the controls were as heavy as lead. It was necessary to be physically quite strong to drive it at all. It was dreadfully slow. I do not think it could do ten miles an hour. It was huge and noisy and full of fumes. We had no shells and could not fire the gun which was of a large calibre, but short like a howitzer. The gunner had to aim and pretend to fire this cumbersome thing. There was no radio and the commander had little to do but direct my course, as the visibility, seated as I was low down in the front peering through a narrow slot, was not good at all. This Renault was very difficult to start and every morning we had to be towed very slowly up a hill by a Skoda tank, then start ours while rolling back down. I tuned up the engine, against all orders, as we were not supposed to touch it. I had seen the resident engineers working on it and had not been impressed. All I did was clean up the contact points in the two magnetos which made it start easier but did nothing for the top speed. The engine was a straight eight side valve motor of about 12 litres. Not enough for this leviathan. After three days I was transferred to a Skoda tank. They were crudely made, though much lighter and faster that the Renault. They had a very noisy air cooled V8 engine. Driving it I had to straddle a huge gearbox. Unusually it had a steering wheel instead of levers, and again my arms needed to be strong to turn the thing. It was capable of about twenty miles an hour and had been fitted with the same gun as the Panzer Mark III so we could now start shooting. The gun was 50mm with a fairly high velocity so it went off with a vicious crack which frightened us severely the first time our gunner set it off. On exercises simulating tank battle, we were shot at by our tutors with rifles to indicate that we would have been hit by a shell. It was hardly audible in the Renault but a rifle bullet hitting the Skoda made a loud clang and sometimes dented the thin armour plating and sent paint flakes flying on the inside. I wouldn't have wanted to be in one of them if a shell was fired at it, it would have come through like paper. After two weeks of baptism on these old tanks and more classroom work, the previous intake left and we took over the six beautiful Panzer Mark III's. The difference was astonishing. They were capable of nearly forty miles an hour for a start. There was power to spare from the Daimler Benz engine. The turret and steering were all power assisted. The 50mm gun had the latest sighting system. We had a feeling of invulnerability as soon as we sat in it. This was to be the tank we would have in the field. It was the latest German medium tank, and the best in the world. If there was a war we felt that with just these six tanks, we, Class 27F, could win it on our own for the Fuhrer. 'Our' Mark III had a crew of three. Myself as the driver, Albrecht, also known as 'Albo' as the gunner, and Dietmarr, who we called 'Fonk', as the Commander. These other two had been swapped round after a few days as their aptitudes became apparent. 'Fonk' had been painfully slow at loading and firing the 50mm, he was also much larger than 'Albo' and in the restricted turret he had found it difficult to get out of the way of the recoiling breech of the gun. It was now a good arrangement as 'Fonk' was a cautious and meticulous person, appearing much older than us, though he was also only nineteen. 'Albo' was from Berlin and could steal and swear and fight by nature it seemed. He was also always scruffy and no amount of help or punishment could change that. He could fire the 50mm gun eight times in a minute though and no one else could do that. We had been training in the Mark III's for three weeks, and only one week remained before we would be deemed fit to take our place in 'Das Reich' Division, when an unfortunate accident occurred. Every morning when we started up our tanks and drove them out onto the hills, an unseemly rush took place to see who would be first onto the road. Never mind warming up the engines. Never mind the checks which should be done. Never mind everyone safely aboard. Sometimes a crew member would have to run after his tank and throw himself on board as it came out of the sheds. One morning, after the usual silly race, Claus, gunner of tank three was seen lying on the floor. He had been crushed and killed instantly between two tanks as they manoevered to get out of the doors. This was our first casualty, a needless accident and a tragic waste of a fighting man. Who is to say that that one man might not make the difference in a battle, and that battle in the War. He was replaced of course, and strict rules then laid down for starting off. Too late for Claus. We heard that the Polish Army had been mobilised and intended to make a pre-emptive strike against Germany, because we had been making representations for the return of German areas like Breslau and Stettin. We were impatient for the last week of our training to end and our assignment in the field with the powerful 'Das Reich' Division, and then to get to the Polish border with all speed so that we could prevent the planned surprise attack. We also knew that under the protection of the Treaty Of Arms Limitation after the Armistice of 1918, Poland had re-armed continuously and massively, while we were supposed to do very little. Thankfully we had made some progress in catching up under The Fuhrer but the intentions of the Poles were obvious. Obvious to us of course, but the rest of Europe chose to close it's eyes to Polish militarism and the whole Slavic alliance against us. Romania, Rumania, Hungary, Yugoslavia and yes, even Bulgaria wanted to dismantle our Country. And we knew who would come after and scavenge in the West after our emasculation. It would be France, Belgium, The Low Countries, Luxembourg and the Baltic Countries, especially Denmark who had wanted Schleswig-Holstein for a hundred years. All this would start if Poland struck us a cowardly blow. Is it any wonder that we wanted to get our Panzers to the border now, today. I remember the date of 23rd August 1939 very well because, just as war with Poland was looking inevitable, Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin, the Leader of Russia, agreed a pact. This was a masterstroke by our Leader, the Western Allies would not be so keen to do anything about Poland with Russia with us, or more accurately, not against us. Although not particularly political in my interests I remember this unexpected event and the general happiness in Germany about it. There is a 'frisson' in war narowly averted which is almost as exciting as war itself. Chapter Three. 'Das Reich' Division. At last the training was finished. We took our leave of the Krefeld Barracks and the Gummersbach Tank School. We took our leave of the grave of poor Claus. We had had the last packed food from the Krefeld Cookhouse, eaten with pleasure in the sunny days in the Saeurland hills, sitting on a Panzer and putting the pies on the exhaust to warm. I always thought how long it must have taken in the early morning, for the girls and women of the Krefeld Barracks to make up those neatly labelled piles of boxes for all the groups who were training off barracks that day. A small miracle of organisation, and typical in its way of the German Army as a whole.
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