Wisloka on Sep 8 1939.

[Domen121]

Hi,

http://www.wwiidaybyday.com/ says:

2.Pz.Div. attacks with Pz.Rgt.4 at 8.00 towards Wysoka. 6 polish AT-guns and machineguns open fire. Point 365 is taken and the AT-defense on the height is eliminated. The Rgt. takes the Wysoka-heights. The following artillery-fire is stopped by eliminating the forward-observer at point 539.

As we see, not only 3rd, but also 4th Panzer-Regiment took part in this battle.

Casualties of 3rd Panzer-Regiment were quite high (more than 20 dead only in one picture - below is another picture with some graves - probably different ones, i think), at least 3 tanks - it seems they were destroyed or heavilly damaged.

I'll try to find something about this battle in Steblik's book "Army Cracow" tomorrow.

Cheers

[Njorl]

Hello Tigre,

For a start - IIRC 10th Mounted Rifles of 10th Cavalry Brigade (Mot.) defended the 'Wysoka' position. I'm away from my sources, but I think there were 2 attacks on that positions - the second one broke through but was repulsed by brigade's artillery battalion (4x75 mm field cannons and 4x100 mm howitzers) with direct fire.

Having read one memoirs of officer of 10th Cav. Bde (mot.) there was a passage about the elimination of Polish artillery observers. Poles took a lesson and from that time observers were to be placed in 'anti-tank terrain' (that officer later served in Polish 1st Armoured Division).

I'll be back

Regards,

MJU

[tigre]

Thanks Jan-Hendrik, Domen121 and Njorl for joining us. Cheers. Tigre .

[Domen121]

For a start - IIRC 10th Mounted Rifles of 10th Cavalry Brigade (Mot.) defended the 'Wysoka' position.

Battle by Wysoka was part of battles in Chabówka - Jordanów (the Chabówka - Jordanów line was Polish main defence position there) - Wysoka (one of Polish minor resistance positions) - Sucha - Milówka - Lubieniec - river Czarny Dunajec regions.

During these battles (1st - 2nd IX 1939) Germans (2nd Panzer-Division, 4 Leichte-Division) lost more than 50 tanks.

Except of IIRC 10th Mounted Rifles of 10th Cavalry Brigade, also some volunteers were defending Wysoka position - some peasants from Wysoka, some students from local Gymnasium, and around 150 volunteers from Jordanów and Chabówka (mainly workers from Chabówka and junaks from Jordanów work battalion).

Soldiers of Żywiecka and Zakopiańska National Defense units were defending a nearby position - their position was located in the edge of the forest between Wysoka and Spytkowice. They were fighting there together with some parts of 2nd battalion from 12th Infantry Regiment, which made an succesfull attack against German units towards Spytkowice - but National Defense soldiers stayed and fought on their positions even after unit from 12th Infantry Regiment withdrawed.

During the fierce fighting by Wysoka, 19 Polish soldiers, students, volunteers, workers and peasants were killed.

During the attack on Spytkowice, lieutenant Tadeusz Stefaniszyn, commander of 4th company of 12th Infantry Regiment, was killed.

Because National Defense was fierce fighting with great courage, and because Germans suffered heavy losses fighting for their positions, they decided to take a revenge for this resistance - Germans burned Wysoka village, and all its inhabitants were taken to work camps in Germany.

War crimes were also commited few days later in Jordanów - 68 percent of buildings were burned, some citizens were murderred.

[tigre]

Thanks for that info Domen. Cheers . Tigre .

[Njorl]

Hello,

Back to the basics
Here's what I incidentally found among Sterbebildern on Ebay.


Kradschütze Josef Baumgart of 2./Kradschützen-Bataillon, KIA near Radomyśl on 08.09.1939. His name can be seen engraved on the cross (the last but one) from first posts by tigre.

Of course this is NOT Oberstlt. Dipl. Ing. Herbert Baumgart, Kommandeur of 2./PanzerRegiment 3, KIA on the same day/night in Biskupice Radłowskie about 40 km W of Radomyśl.

Regards,
Michal Jungiewicz

[tigre]

Thanks for posting your finding Michal. Cheers. Raúl M .

[Domen123]

Of course this is NOT Oberstlt. Dipl. Ing. Herbert Baumgart, Kommandeur of 2./PanzerRegiment 3, KIA on the same day/night in Biskupice Radłowskie about 40 km W of Radomyśl.

Not - 2./Panzer-Regiment 3., but - II./Panzer-Regiment 3. .

[Njorl]

Of course you're right, Domen.

Regards,
Michal Jungiewicz

[Domen123]

Hi again!

German casualties during the battles of Wysoka and Jordanów (in Jordanów region) on 2nd of September were around 50 - 60 tanks. Two tank companies suffered the major part of these losses - 3. company and 1. company from I./Panzer-Regiment 3.

If it comes to men losses, at least around 40 KIA can be counted in photos which show German graves after the battle (there are two such photos with two different groups of graves).

Fallen soldiers from 3. tank company during the Polish Campaign:



2nd of September (Wysoka) - 11 KIA - including one of two Zugfuhrers - Leutnant von Ronne
8th / 9th of September - 1 KIA
11th / 12th of September - 2 KIA
24th of September - 3 KIA

According to official statistic - from history of 2. Panzer-Division - Panzer-Regiment 3. lost 60 KIA and 60 WIA in period 1st of September - 20th of September 1939 (casualties suffered after 20th of September - like those 3 KIA from 3. company - are not included here).

--------------------------------------------------

On 8th of September during the battle of Biskupice Radłowskie (at the river Dunajec) commander of II./Panzer-Regiment 3. - Oberst Herbert Baumgart - was KIA.

His tank was succesfully hit 3 times by Polish direct artillery fire and AT gun fire - 3 members of crew were killed, including Baumgart.

During the battle of Biskupice Radłowskie on 8th of September II. battalion of Panzer-Regiment 3. lost 18 KIA (including 2 officers - Baumgart among them), 2 or 1 MIA, 21 WIA and 7 POWs.

During that battle aide-de-camp of the battalion and commanders of 6. and 8. companies (Hauptmann Liese and Hauptmann Maerker) were very heavily wounded.

23 tanks (10 Pz-I, 9 Pz-II, 2 Pz-IV and 2 Pz-BefWg) from II./Panzer-Regiment 3. were completely destroyed during the battle of Biskupice - many more were damaged.

[tigre]

Thanks for that complement Domen .

Feliz Navidad - Feliz Natal - Frohe Weihnachten - Joyeux Noël - Merry Christmas.

Cheers. Raúl M .

[Domen123]

Hi!,

Thanks very much - and I also wish you - and all forum members - Merry Christmas!

And here some more photos of German tanks eliminated during the battles of Wysoka - Jordanów on 2nd of September 1939 - photos come from the Polish forum odkrywca:





And here something interesting - can anybody read it ?:





Cheers.

[Njorl]

And here something interesting - can anybody read it ?:

If you carefully re-read that topic on Odkrywca you'll find my attempt.

Regards,
Michal Jungiewicz

[Domen123]

If you carefully re-read that topic on Odkrywca you'll find my attempt.

Thanks Njorl, I found it .

Btw:

All of these photos of knocked out tanks during the battle of Wysoka, which have been posted here (total 5 photos), come from the German album. According to the description all of these knocked out tanks which can be seen in these photos are from 8. company. The major part of the German tank casualties during that battle was suffered by 3. and 1. companies, as was already mentioned.

Here are these photos (different - black & white - versions of the same photos which were posted by tigre on the previous page + those two photos which I posted in my post above) - I'm posting them again to place them together:

[Domen123]

Casualties of II. / Panzer-Regiment 3. during the battle of Wysoka - Jordanow on 02.09.1939:

Tanks destroyed:

Btl. Stab - 3 PzKfw I
5. company - 5 PzKfw I / 3 PzKfw II
6. company - 1 PzKfw I
8. company - none (this would mean that none of the knocked out tanks which can be seen in the photos above - because all of them are from 8. company - were recognized as destroyed)

Tanks which required major repairs:

Btl. Stab - 0
5. company - 1 PzKfw I
6. company - none
8. company - 1 PzKfw I / 2 PzKfw IV (in the photos above we cannot see any PzKfw IVs - so it seems that the photos above do not depict tanks which required major repairs)

Source: Kriegstagebuch of II. / Panzer-Regiment 3.

To these numbers we must add also casualties of I. / Panzer-Regiment 3. which were much higher than casualties of II./Pz.Rgt.3 (companies no. 1. and 3. - which belonged to I./Pz.Rgt.3 - suffered the highest losses of all tank companies of 2. Panzer-Division during the battle of Wysoka and Jordanow) and possible casualties of Panzer-Regiment 4. (if it suffered any during that battle).

When adding casualties of I. battalion and possible casualties of Pz.Rgt.4, as well as taking into consideration all knocked out tanks (not only destroyed and those which required major repairs), we can see that Polish estimations saying about 60 - 50 German tanks knocked out during the battle of Wysoka - Jordanow on 02.09.1939 were very accurate or even too low (underestimated).

High number of destroyed tanks (12 in II. battalion of PR.3 alone) is surprising considering that Poles used their field artillery for direct fire practically only during the last part of the battle (repulsing the last German attack near Jordanow), and before that German tanks were being eliminated mainly by 37mm AT guns and AT rifles, as well as indirect fire of artillery (which can be seen very well in the photos posted above, which show tanks from 8. company of PR.3).

Polish casualties were estimated by German sources as:

4 knocked out AT guns
1 mortar knocked out
2 armoured cars (??!!) knocked out

274 soldiers wounded / dead / captured

2 AT guns captured

PS: German sources often used to count captured equipment which was previously destroyed separately (for example after the battle of Pszczyna OKW reported capturing 4,5 Polish batteries in Silesia, while in fact those captured batteries were all previously destroyed by Panzers during the battle of Cwiklice) - which meant double counting - e.g. - two guns were destroyed and later captured, but German sources said about 2 guns destroyed + 2 more captured.