Beyond the Rhine
Page 29
Source: Hans Kammler - https://en.wikipedia.org
Junkers Ju 52
General characteristics
Crew: three (two pilots, radio operator)
Capacity: 18 troops or 12 litter patients
Length: 18.90 m (62 ft 0 in)
Wingspan: 29.25 m (95 ft 10 in)
Height: 4.5 m (14 ft 10 in)
Wing area: 110.5 m² (1,190 ft²)
Empty weight: 6,510 kg (14,325 lb)
Loaded weight: 9,200 kg (20,270 lb)
Max. take-off weight: 10,990 kg (24,200 lb)
Powerplant: 3 × BMW 132T radial engines, 533 kW (715 hp)[48] each
Performance
Maximum speed: 265 km/h (165 mph) at sea level
Cruise speed: 211 km/h (132 mph)
Range: 870 km (540 mi)
Service ceiling: 5,490 m (18,000 ft)
Rate of climb: 2.99 m/s; 17 minutes to 3,050 m (10,000 ft)
Armament
Guns:
1 × 13 mm (.51 in) MG 131 machine gun in a dorsal position
2 × 7.92 mm (.312 in) MG 15 machine guns
Bombs: up to 500 kilograms (1,100 lb) of bombs (some variants)
Junkers Ju 52
Courtesy of Wikipedia
Source: File:MG-15 ammo Ju-52.jpg - https://en.wikipedia.org
Source: File:Junkers JUn52 cockpit.JPG - https://en.wikipedia.org
Operation Plunder
This was the British part of the crossing of the Rhine. Four thousand guns laid down a four hour barrage. The only force which had a chance of opposing them was the 1st Parachute Army but they had suffered heavily in the previous battle and their commander withdrew them. The Germans did not waste men reinforcing what was a lost cause. 30,000 men were captured in the Ruhr pocket as a result of this. However, Montgomery had to change his plans and make for Hamburg and the Baltic coast. He gave up his dream of getting to Berlin first.
Patton pre-empted the attack by launching his own, further south, earlier. General Bradley later remembered that Patton had strongly urged the announcement saying “I want the world to know that Third Army made it before Monty starts across.”
3 Inch Mortar
Weight
Base plate/sight: 37 lb (17 kg)
Barrel/spares: 34 lb (15 kg)
Bipod: 44.5 lb (20.2 kg)
Total: 115.5 lb (52.4 kg)
Barrel length 4 ft 3 in (1.30 m)
Shell Bomb 10 lb (4.5 kg)
Calibre 3.2 in (81 mm)
Muzzle velocity 650 ft/s (200 m/s)
Maximum firing range
Mk. II LR: 2,800 yds. (2,600 m)
By Bauple58 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17949196
Source: File:A member of the Home Guard demonstrates a rifle equipped to fire an anti-tank grenade, Dorking, 3 August 1942. H22061.jpg - https://en.wikipedia.org
“The No. 68 was an early form of shaped charge grenade, and has some claim to have been the first High Explosive, Anti-Tank (HEAT) device in use. The design of the warhead was simple and was capable of penetrating 52mm (2 inches) of armour in 1940.
The fuse of the grenade was armed by removing a pin in the tail which prevented the firing pin from flying forward. The grenade was launched from a rifle cup. The simple fins gave it some stability in the air and, provided the grenade hit the target at the proper angle (90 degrees), the charge would be effective. Detonation occurred on impact, when a striker in the tail of the grenade overcame the resistance of a creep spring and was thrown forward into a stab detonator.”
Source: No. 68 AT Grenade - https://en.wikipedia.org
Kangaroo- APC using a Churchill tank hull
Source: File:Churchill Kangaroo tank.jpg - https://en.wikipedia.org
Schloss Rheda
Source: File:Rheda Schloss.jpg - https://en.wikipedia.org
Notice the bridge Gordy and Tom use to enter the castle. The wall has now been replaced by a hedge.
Mittelbau-Dora
It was, of course the Americans who rescued the inmates of Mittelbau-Dora. The British found other camps but not the one where they made the V-2.
“By late January, 56 rockets had been produced. By May, monthly output was 400 units. There were still defects, resulting in launch-pad and mid-air explosions. Output was still far below the goal of 1,000 units per month. Wernher von Braun visited the Nordhausen plant on 25 January 1944 and again on 6 May 1944, when he met Walter Dornberger, Arthur Rudolph and Albin Sawatzki, discussing the need to enslave another 1,800 skilled French workers.
The prisoners were subject to extreme cruelty. As a result, they often suffered injuries, including permanent disability and disfigurement, and death. Severe beatings were routine, as was deliberate starvation, torture and summary executions.
From spring/summer 1944, the camp became the centre of a subcamp system of its own. Originally, these still were part of the Buchenwald system. With the creation of the Jägerstab (Fighter Staff), led by Speer, as an institution to oversee a boost to fighter plane production and the move of military production underground, facilities for the production of fighter planes for the Junkers company were to be created around Nordhausen - along with the necessary infrastructure. In addition, after the creation of the Geilenbergstab (named after Edmund Geilenberg), over the summer of 1944 more underground construction was requested for the German petroleum industry. Demand for workers for these projects was satisfied with concentration camp prisoners, but also with foreign forced labourers, POWs and drafted Germans.”
“In early April 1945, as US troops were advancing towards the Harz, the SS decided to evacuate most of the Mittelbau camps. In great haste and with considerable brutality, the inmates were forced to board box cars. Several trains, each with thousands of prisoners, left the area through 6 April for Bergen-Belsen, Sachsenhausen and Ravensbrück. Others were forced to walk through the Harz hills towards the northeast. Those unable to keep up with these death marches were summarily shot by the guards.
The worst atrocity occurred at Gardelegen, known as the Gardelegen massacre. More than 1,000 prisoners from Mittelbau and Neuengamme subcamps were murdered in a barn that was set on fire. Those who were not burned alive were shot by SS, Wehrmacht and men of the Volkssturm.
Overall, although no reliable statistics on the number of deaths on these transports exist, estimates put the number of prisoners killed at up to 8,000.”
“As most of the camps of the Mittelbau system were completely evacuated, there were not many prisoners left to be liberated by the Allies. Only some small subcamps, mostly containing Italian POWs were not evacuated. The SS also left several hundred sick prisoners at Dora and in the Boelcke-Kaserne. They were freed when US troops reached Nordhausen on 11 April 1945. There were also around 1,300 dead prisoners at the barracks.
War correspondents took pictures and made films of the dead and dying prisoners at Dora. Like the documentation of Nazi atrocities at Bergen-Belsen, these were published around the globe and became some of the best-known testimonies of Nazi crimes.
Those inmates who survived the transports, were freed in mid-April at Bergen-Belsen or at other camps. Some, however, remained prisoners until early May and were freed in Mecklenburg or Austria.
In total, even conservative estimates put the number of people who did not survive being sent to Mittelbau-Dora at over 20,000. Thus, around one in three of those confined here did not survive.”
Source: Mittelbau-Dora - https://en.wikipedia.org
Reference Books used
The Commando Pocket Manual 1949-45- Christopher Westhorp
The Second World War Miscellany-Norman Ferguson
Army Commandos 1940-45- Mike Chappell
Military Slang-Lee Pemberton
World War II-Donald Sommerville
The Historical Atlas of World War II-Swanston and Swanston
Churchill’s Wizards: The British Genius for Deception 1914-1945- Nicholas Rankin
Griff Hosker May 2
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