At Flesquieres an appreciable number of MIVs were knocked out by field guns. One FK96 n/A, manned by a lone surviving company grade officer, who singlehandedly managed to load, lay, and fire long enough to KO some 17 tanks until he himself was killed. One would think such heroism would have caused the Brits to at least identify him by name in as much as they occupied the position for a number of hours. Anyone know more information about this feldgrau ?
The existance of such a hero was rather unknown to the Germans. When they learned about it from British sources, they finally identified - in the 1930ies! - a certain Unteroffizier Theodor Krüger from 8./FAR 108 - as the only possible candidate, although the regimental history (written 1919) knew nothing of this. Most probably the story is a British tank myth that was finally adopted in Nazi times by the Germans as well.
Very interesting. So the chap was an nco rather than an O2 or O1. Haig's battle report mentions the incident, so if it is only a myth it must have spread faster in three days than a bad cold. Thanks Mad, I've been wondering about this one for a long time.
The regimental history of FAR 108 distributes their tank kills on November 20th as follows: - battery Kuskop (1./108): 7 - batteries Müller and Ross (2./- and 3./108): 6 - battery Vieth (4./108): 3 - battery Reusch (5./108): 2 - battery Lorenzen (6./108): 12 - battery Heller (7./108): 5 - battery Behrmann (8./108): 6 - battery Müller (Karl) (9./108): 8 49 in total, only those obeserved, hits during the barrage not included ("when the fog lifted about noon, one could see a number of tanks burning in the rear combat zone")
Also interesting to note their losses for November 20th : - KIA: 8 - wounded: 53 - missing: 83 - horses killed: 25 - horses wounded: 10
