Relic German Pak 40 battle damaged Shield recovered HILL 112 Normandy
Article about: Firstly I'd like to say what a superb Forum this is, the posts and collective knowledge of the members is outstanding and I'll happily recomend it to my friends. For many years I have been i
Relic German Pak 40 battle damaged Shield recovered HILL 112 Normandy
Firstly I'd like to say what a superb Forum this is, the posts and collective knowledge of the members is outstanding and I'll happily recomend it to my friends.
For many years I have been interested in Battlefield archeology, visiting many places of WW2 actions both in the East and West. I don't know what you think about this but I feel, it doesn't matter how many books you read about an action. You only truely understand a site if you're able to visit and get a feel for the terrain and even better if you can go at a similar time of year to the original action. Anyway enough of that, just to say Im looking forward to posting more threads in the future.
As this is my first attempt at a post, I thought I put some pictures of a German PAK 40 relic shield recovered from Hill 112 in Normandy.
This hill was held by the German forces against huge pressure from the Anglo Allies who had been bottled up in Normandy bridgehead for alot longer than planned. The German forces involved in defending the hill included elements of the 1st SS Leibstandarte AH, 9th SS Hohenstaufen, 10th SS Frundsberg, 12th SS HJ, 19th SS PzGr, 21st SS PzGr, 22nd SS PzGr and 102 SS Heavy Panzer Reg.
The hill offered a commanding view of the allied bridgehead and was the last major obstacle before the flat plains South which was ideal tank country.
A quote used at the time stated that 'Who ever held Hill 112 held Normandy'.
I actually won this relic on ebay a few years ago, and just for reference No I didn't pay the postage I had to collect it in person from a frenchman in Normandy. It gave me another great excuse for a few days site seeing. Anyway he told me that this came from what had been a trench toward the top. After the battle they became ideal places for dumping the detritious of war when the area was cleared. He said he recovered other items as well but didn't say what.
I decided because of its very poor condition it needed work to preserve and restore it. Normally I like to keep the relics as close to the as found condition as possible but this was so badly rusted that in the end I cleaned it up and have re painted it in the original camo to seal it. Sadly there was no original paint and what I have put on to stop the rusting can be removed easily if necessary.
If you look you will see that it was knocked out by a low trajetory shell, either from another anti tank weapon or tank. Its very likely that this weapon was an SS weapon.
The last couple of photo's show the nose cone supports for 75mm shells that would have been inside the wicker shell cases. I recovered these in Normandy, the Pak shield is behind. The final picture is for reference, the business end of a Pak 40 (this photo was taken at the War and Peace show Detling, UK. 2008) its in the process of being restored.
Re: Relic German Pak 40 battle damaged Shield recovered HILL 112 Normandy
Hello Luckystrike , welcome aboard , and a great start to you input on the fiorum . Im reading about hill 112 at this very moment in a book called The Germans In Normandy , it sounds like it was one hell of a battle , awesome to have a piece from there very lucky . i agree about your comments when you walk on these battle feilds , a very intence feeling , one you never forget , and one ill never get enought of , cheers Raymond
Re: Relic German Pak 40 battle damaged Shield recovered HILL 112 Normandy
Thank you very much for your replies to my post, its a nice welcome and a thank you to Hosa for identifying the nose cone supports as 88mm Flak 18rounds. I'm happy with that.
Relic German Pak 40 battle damaged Shield recovered HILL 112 Normandy
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