Congratulations to Mr. Prewitt. It should be noted, however, that France’s highest order of merit is called the Legion of Honour (Légion d’honneur), not the Legion of Armour, and also that France doesn’t actually have knighthoods in the same sense as Britain does. “Chevalier” (knight) is indeed one of the Legion of Honour’s five levels, and the name is a holdover from the days when France still had an aristocracy, but the French nobility system went out the window with the French Revolution. I once saw a series of amusing cartoons depicting what life in France would be like today if the Bourbon monarchy hadn’t fallen, and one of them showed an irate air traveler standing at the ticket counter of “Royal Air France” and telling the ticket agent “But I’m a baron and I have a confirmed reservation!” The agent replies, “I’m sorry, sir, but the Duke of So-and-so has precedence over you, so we gave him your seat.” In fairness, the same sort of thing actually happens in real-life republican France. A few years ago, there was scandal involving one of the major D-Day anniversaries (I think it was the 50th one), when the French government contacted various hotels in Normany and appropriated some of their existing reservations so that various French officials could have rooms for the event. Some of those rooms, however, had been reserved by foreign veterans of the D-Day invasion. When the story broke on the front page of French newspapers (under such headlines as “Our Liberators Insulted!”), public opinion was outraged and the French government beat a hasty retreat. The prevailing editorial opinion over this affair was: Do this to our own citizens if you want, but don’t do this to the heroes who ended the occupation of France.
Favorite WWII Anti-Tank Gun/Weapon to destroy a Tank?
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it was basically the flak 37, but with a sloped front plate and lower mount. awesome gun that was able to penetrate the heaviest of allied armour (same gun as was in the king tiger and jagdpanther)
they also made a pak43/41, which was the same idea except on a wheeled base like the pak40
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My Grandfather in North Africa captured a German tank (single handedly, I think) and painted it US colors. I’ve only heard it from my dad though. My Grandfather died around the age of 50, so I never knew him.
Very useful, that German tank. Very useful it was…
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do you know what is was?
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…actually, no. I forget. I’ll have to ask my dad.
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Grandfather was the head motor Sergant. Lost all 23 of his tanks in 1 day. 2 Tiger Tanks were hiding, and rose up out of the sand. Captured both with his men.
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no wonder!..Germans used better oculars to estimate the distance in africa because of the heat blurres from the ground…in africa speed was important…if you could make the enemy before he could make you out the advance was on your side…they used to fire allready from far distance…
your grandpa was awsome by taking out those Tiger Tanks w. his men…must been around spring in '42 !?.. -
The US actually didn’t land until the Fall of 42. I think this particular battle was in 43.
My Grandpa was American, but he worked with guys from India, Cannada, Poland, Britain, all over the place. Said, 'These guys could do anything." They got along very well, and worked very well together.
Seeing those Tigers rise out of the sand scared the crap out of them, though…
would have scared the crap out of me, too…
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i’m going another route here.
finnish soldiers on skis with molotov cocktails
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nice :-D
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My bad of course '43!!
here are two more of my favorites…
Hetzer / agitator and Marder
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