Bob Carruthers - Tiger Command!

Suddenly he started to feel the ground get softer and, rather alarmingly, when Bobby Junge manoeuvred to avoid a tree in front of them, he could feel certain unresponsiveness in the tank’s handling. He motioned to the tanks behind him to take the ground into account. It was then that he knew. They wouldn’t be attacked now. They would only be attacked when the last of the tanks was on the softer ground.

He then had a flash of being in his opponent’s mind and he was immediately reminded of the last time this had happened. The eyes, the white hair, the hands making the shape of a gun… “Snap out of it, Hans! Concentrate!”

He was right to do so. Suddenly, he sensed there was indeed the suspicion of muzzle-flashes on the extreme edge of his peripheral vision, and those were what his eyes were straining for. This was one of the reasons he rarely buttoned up inside the tank, eyes before ears! The light of a muzzle-flash would reach him well before the sound of any firing, but where had it come from?

Hans put himself in the mind of the Russian commander. He has two options; proceed with an attack either from the village, or the high ground off to the east. The high ground was the obvious option, but the most astute commanders rarely used the most obvious option. In that case, he would open up from the hamlet, draw us in, and then let us have it from the high ground. Therefore…

But before he had time to work out a counter-strategy, Hans saw the bright, brief and unmistakable burst of a muzzle-flash. From the village, the house on the right! Michael had seen it too, as he had been measuring the fire control, pressing left and right, waiting for the order to fire. Then a massive thud! The tank shook. Then another… and then another… and again and again… Hans jumped back into the tank. Bang! Bang! Concussive blow after concussive blow! Otto swore he could almost hear shells spinning and burring their way into the tank.

“Achtung! One o’clock! 1,400 metres. HE!” shouted Hans.

Knispel could barely hear von Schroif’s voice above the din and deafening crashes. He immediately slammed his foot on the turret traverse. The turret swung to the right. With his left hand he set the range on the sight, the whole tank now reverberating, a cacophony of crashing metal.

Again and again, Knispel, like every other crew member, felt stupefied and dazed, like someone had taken out his skull and started using it as a drum, but through his assaulted senses he still managed to crank the elevation hand wheel with his right hand… the target came into view…

“Ready… Release safety… Fire!”

And up it went, the explosion sending the two bodies of a PATR crew into the air, one landing and remaining immobile, the other grotesquely attempting to stand on one leg, falling, and trying to crawl, but there was no time to consider such sideshows.

“Achtung! 11 o’clock, 1,300 metres. HE!” shouted Hans again, and Knispel, through the smoke, smell of cordite, and the shriek of steel, went through the methodical but precise procedure of swinging round the turret and finding his next target, and then the next… and the next… taking out every anti-tank gun and PATR position in that damned hamlet, one by one…

Hans could tell by the amount of fire that was pounding the village that the other three Tigers had adopted exactly the same strategy.

“Stop. Measure. Use your brains, pick your target, fire, and then repeat and repeat again…”

It may have been slower than the blizzard of shelling coming from the hamlet, but the fire from the Tigers was effective! Within five minutes, any offensive capabilities of the Ivans had been reduced to twisted, smoking wreckage.

Then it suddenly occurred to him◦– what had happened to any Soviet forces that may have been on the hill to the east? But before he had time to process this last thought, another muzzle-flash◦– this time in the trees behind the hamlet. “Damn! Out of range! We are going to have to go in!”

Hans von Schroif had Karl Wendorff radio the infantry and support wagons to have them stay where they were. He then ordered the four Tigers to split into two groups of two, each pair to traverse opposite paths round the hamlet. Bobby slowly started moving her forward, picking up speed, everything going smoothly◦– what a joy of a machine!◦– but no sooner had the thought crossed his mind than he could feel the engine straining and the tracks start to slip.

“Haupsturmführer, we have a problem, sir. Behind us.”

Hans swivelled round in his cupola and saw, to his horror, the trailing tank spew smoke and stutter to a halt.

“Overheating!” explained Knispel.

“Halt!” shouted Hans to Bobby Junge, who immediately obeyed.

“There’s no point in continuing,” thought von Schroif miserably to himself. He couldn’t leave the tank stranded… There were always many courses of action and many outcomes, but one particular outcome was unthinkable◦– allowing a new Tiger to fall into the hands of the Soviets. It was either going to have to be defended until reinforcements arrived and it was towed back to the workshop area, or repaired…

“Panzeroberschütze Wendorff, get me Hauptscharführer Rubbal.”

“No need, Hauptsturmführer,” came the calm and reassuring reply, “…he is on his way!”

Hans looked up and over the trail they had just travelled down and saw a Kübelwagen hurtling towards them! “Brave man!” thought Hans. It wasn’t just the front line that had its share of heroes!

Hans von Schroif turned and surveyed the hamlet again for any change in the situation, but the guns had fallen silent and the whole sector seemed quiet. “What was happening?” He should at least be hearing his other two Tigers…

“Have the other two Tigers report to me, Wendorff.”

Hans could hear the tone of the conversation without hearing the exact words, and it alarmed him. Karl Wendorff conveyed the bad news. “Immobile. Both of them. Transmission problems.”

“Damn!” thought von Schroif, cursing this new circumstance. “Could things get any worse?”

And then they did… The entire hill off to his east seemed to light up with a series of sequential flashes. The tell-tale trails of smoke streaking across the sky told their own story; Katyushas! Hans von Schroif threw himself back into the tank, buttoned up, and waited for the storm that was about to be unleashed.

The thunder struck again. The crew was violently thrown about as rocket after rocket screamed through the air, crashing into the tank and the ground around it. On and on it went. Each and every single one of them thinking, believing, for there was no evidence to the contrary, that their next breath would be their last. All they could do was pray that it would end soon. Every single one of them had the same nightmarish vision, the same supreme fear, that the next rocket was going to be the one that broke through and roasted them alive…

Hans was burdened not only by this nightmarish vision, but by another. A burden shared by all good commanders◦– a total humiliation. He had failed, letting down his country, his unit, his crew and himself. The next explosion would surely eviscerate him and his crew, and take any reputation he had with him… but the next rocket did not break through, nor the one after that, nor even the one after that.

Finally, it did, after all, come to an end. It left an endless ringing in the ears and a stunned silence, followed by a radio message from the following Tiger that Hauptscharführer Rubbal was on his way and, a few seconds later, by a knock on the hatch.

“Hauptsturmführer! Don’t shoot! Hauptsturmführer von Schroif… it’s me… Hauptscharführer Rubbal.”

Without having fully returned to his senses, Hans gingerly pushed open the hatch. He was greeted by the smiling face of SS-Hauptscharführer Rubbal.