Rare Combination

[Paddy Keating]

This is a combination not often seen. Now, who can tell us why?

PK

[freddiefro]

A Fallschirmschützenabzeichen and a Panzerkampfabzeichen on the same uniform (in this case, an SS-Panzer soldier) is a bit unusual.

-Fred

[John P. Moore]

Does bailing out of a tank that has been hit count?

John

[phylo_roadking]

Is there a date with that? Anything to do with the PzIIs that made it ashore on Crete late in the battle?

[Paddy Keating]

Nice tries, lads! Here he is as an Oscha a few months later. Had he been in a tank in one of the mountain passes in, say, northern Albania, with a 1,500 cliff to one side of a road, he might have been able to use a parachute to get away from a partisan attack. However, the Germans were strict about the number of jumps to qualify: one chap was taken out of the Fallschirmschule with just one jump to do to qualify and sent on an airborne operation. He jumped into combat. He survived...and was sent back to the school to do his last jump to get his FSA. Pretty mean-spirited, if you ask me! I mean, even the bureaucratic French handed out wings to the non-airborne guys they loaded onto planes with parachutes for those last reinforcement jumps into Dien Bien Phu in 1954! Anyway, the Germans did experiment with parachuting Kubelwagens and other light vehicles. I think they even lobbed a PKW II out over the airfield at Orange or Istres: great pics in the ECPA-D in Paris of the broken steel static line, bemused staff and the tank after its express 600 feet descent. But I don't think they obliged the crew to ride it to the DZ.

PK

[Paddy Keating]

Phylo,

The photo in the black wrapover was taken early in 1944. He did one of the first courses run by Fallschirmschule III when they moved to Serbia and these photos were taken on leave just afterwards. The second photo was taken on another home leave in the early spring of 1944 to see his new baby, just after operation "May Tree" (Maibaum).

PK

[Paddy Keating]

Who can tell me which maker might have produced his jump badge?



PK

[panzermahn]

Hi Paddy,

Any chance this guy got transferred to the SS-Fallschirmjaeger? It would be a waste if he wasn't :)


Panzermahn

[pzrmeyer2]

Who can tell me which maker might have produced his jump badge?



PK

Roger Honts?

[Paddy Keating]

He was transferred from Das Reich to SS-Fallschirmjäger-Btl 500, Panzermahn.

No, not Roger Honts...



PK

[Michael Miller / ABR]

Roger Honts?

That was very, very, very funny...!


~ Mike

[Paddy Keating]

The badge is most likely by the Assmann firm, which still makes Parachutist Badges for the German armed forces. It is probably a pre-injection molding feinzink type. Some early Juncker badges had a similar eagle but they were very much from the 1938/40 time frame.

PK