Johann Huber Speech At DX'05 Friday Night Dinner

Part 2 (After Dinner)

To be or not to be

© 2005 by Johann Huber

Today is April 3rd 1945

Wake up! It is nearly 3 am, but now we get supplied with ammunition and fuel. First we send the two combat vehicles of Master Sergeant Beck and Sergeant Lechler to re-supply. After they are finished and back in their positions it’s our turn.

We need armor-piercing rounds, high explosive rounds and fuel but there is no fuel left for us tonight. This is a big problem for us as, we only have 40 to 50 litres left in our fuel tanks. Lieutenant Meyer, our old and reliable company commander, replaces Fw Weitz at the forward arming and supply point. Meier, awarded with the German Cross in Gold, is an experienced commanding officer and served in our Regiment since the French-Campaign.

We return to our former position after completing the ammunition re-supply. It is 35 yards behind a street running northward in the same direction as hill 66. In the meantime there is probably enough daylight for the Russians to already see us. It’s high time we are back in position.

Soon, we see the area directly in front of us. During the night, the Russian infantry has worked its way forward to our current position. They are damned close to the street in front of us. The closest Russians directly in front of us are only 80 yards and 35 yards behind the street. Didn’t we even see them? Everything happened in complete silence. They have already built new foxholes for protection and their marksmen in forward positions aren't further than 80 to 100 yards from us.

The Russians shoot at any of our movements they can see. Our grenadiers have to remain covered to prevent them from getting wounded or even killed. If we only lift our heads a little bit, they start shooting at us. Their machine pistol bullets twitter by quite close. The sound of the many Russian machine pistols from left and right is continuous and forces us to stay covered. We do not hear even one of our own reliable MG 42 machine guns firing this morning. None of our grenadiers dares to shoot back at them. It’s only good that the Russian weapons burst so much even at this close distance and so their bullets are quite inaccurate.

I have been sitting at the tank sight for a long time because the company commander can’t take a look out of the hatch. He needs the scissors telescope for himself. It is too dangerous for him to raise his head over the edge as we are continually engaged by small arms fire. Again and again long machine pistol bursts knock against the armor plates of our Jagdpanzer IV.

There is movement behind Hill 66 in front of us at 10 am. Because the wind direction is to the west we can clearly hear the noise of the Russian engines. Now it starts! Some of their tanks move to an assembly area just prior to starting the attack against our positions. Right now we have are only 5 Jagdpanzer IV and 3 Panthers located 1 km to our right side. We are the only tanks between the Russians and the Baltic Sea.

The first Stalin tank crawls very slowly over the horizon. I see it immediately. The cupola becomes visible behind the hill first. The tank stops, scans the area in front and drives forward again. The Stalin’s commanding officer stands in the tank cupola holding the binoculars in front of his eyes. It stops a few times and then moves forward in our direction. I have already adjusted the shot distance and the loader puts an armor-piercing round in the gun-barrel. We let him drive forward until I can clearly see the tank’s muzzle brake over the horizon. Now he stops again and turns the turret directly toward us.

Lieutenant Meier asks me: "Do you have him?"

Yes! I aim below his muzzle brake with my aiming-thorn set up on a distance of 1.000 meters. Our loader releases the cannon and the tank commander Lieutenant Meier yells "Fire!"

The projectile is on the way. Through the sights I see the last 200 yards of the armor-piercing round’s flight and then the hit. It is a white-hot fireball approximately 5 ft. in diameter - but it is deflected on the armor plating. The round climbs vertically with a white tracer into the sky. It didn't go through the armor.

I fire another round. Continue...

Huber's Speech at DX'05 Friday Night Dinner

Part 1-1 | 1-2 | Part 2-1 | 2-2 | 2-3 | 2-4 | 2-5 | Rokossowski