Cor Blimey - just can not keep up !
In addition ref Kangaroos...
I have been sorting out the mass of paper that always seems to clutter the place. This morning I stumbled on a letter that was sent to me back in June 1996. This was from a former soldier of the 2nd Ox & Bucks LI, fighting through Holland:
'...we were travelling in Kangaroos in the advance on Winterswijk in Holland on Good Friday (30/3/44). We were in 12 Kangaroos when we came up against 'fallschirmjaeger' of the 7th Fsj Division at 'Het Woold', about 5 kms from Winterswijk. As this was a somewhat new squadron of Kangaroos, they pulled up in a straight row on a road with a deep ditch on both sides. Instead of leaving room for manoeuvering, they parked nose to tail.
'A solitary German 'Sturmgesutz' commanded by one Leutnant Heinz Deutsch, holder of the 'Ritterkreuz', commenced to shoot up the Kangaroos as if it were a turkey shoot. From a total of 12 Kangaroos and two tanks, he hit one tank and eight Kangaroos. We suffered about 14 dead and and nearly 20 wounded. The dead are buried an the cemetary at Winterswijk, along with one member of the RAC who was killed at the same time and one member of the HLI who was killed the next day when we entered Winterswijk.
'I personally met with Lt Heinz Deutsh for the first time at his home in Kelkheim, near Frankfurt in 1990. We became very good friends but sadly he died last October [Oct 95] after a long illness. He was also part of the 7th Fsj Div, "Sturmgeschutzebrigade 12". This division was only formed in the Autumn 44, under the command of the Generalleutnant Erdmann, who after the war killed himself in a British POW Camp. Between the Maas and the Rhine, Heinz Deutsch destroyed 35 Allied armoured vehicles...'
If I recall correctly, has there not been a past thread on this action ?
Roddy
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Moderator's note: message split from thread RamTank.ca and merged into this one. ]