Ola Guys

With the troubles we had with the security breach and all that sort of stupid things I''m glad I can offer you some very good news.

Patrick Busch also known as Foxy from this site, posted a couple of months some pictures out of the personal photoalbum of his grandfather who served in the German Army at the Eastern Front. I have asked him if he was interested in having the album hosted on Armorama and he thought it was a good idea too. So last week I was happy to receive 45 stunning pictures all very usefull photoreference.

Now note this is an Armorama''s first of having a WW2 personal war-album. The other cool thing is that these pictures are never published before, not in books not on the Internet. For these facts I'm a little proud

Thanks to Patrick Busch (Foxy) for sharing the photo's with us and thanks to Jurjen Zuijdendorp en Vinnie Branigan who helped me put this online.

Now I''m not going to say much more. As they say a picture often tells more then a thousand words. This is absolutely no exception. I hope you enjoy this view at the Eastern Front through the eyes of a PanzerJäger



Link to Item

If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks!

Hallo Patrick,

Thank you for sharing this family treasure.

Interesting pictures, thanks a lot!

Greetings and best wishes,
ekke

The photo called 'Car Wash' is either a 1938 deluxe or a 1939 standard Ford sedan.

The photo called 'Russian Mud' (and there was another there as well) shows what appear to be captured British Bedford 15cwt trucks.

Very interesting thank you for sharing.

Cheers
Cliff

thanks for sharing

Robert,

Thank you for bringing those excellent historic photos to Armorama. Thank you to Patrick Busch for sharing a part of his family history with us so generously.

All of the pictures are great and help illustrate an interesting and tragic part of world history.

Scott

A truely marvellous set of photographs, we are lucky to have them shared with us.

John

Thats a great set of photos.. thanks for sharing..

Thats a great set of photos.. thanks for sharing..

Interesting to see pictures from the greman side of the war... Thanks for sharing..


Dave

Patrick, thank you so much for sharing not only a major part of history with us but a personal history of your grandfathers as well. Fantastic pictures!

Fantastic, I always enjoy looking at old photographs, seeing how these are in 'mint' condition to the internet and publishers, its much better

To Patrick, Robert and Vinnie

Thanks for bringing us these photos they are a very inciteful and interesting look at the experience at the Eastern Front. I like the personal stuff like pictures of Russian towns and cities and of course the mud.

Patrick what fine legacy to have received from your grandfather. Something to truly treasure for all time

Greatly appreciated you tmaking the effort to share it with us.

Regards

Sean

Ola guys

Thanks for your comments. But all the thanks really should go to Patrick who was willing to share these photographic treasures. I really was excited when I received the set of pictures and saw the extremely well preserved condition they were in.

Cliff Interesting remark you made. Do you think the captured vehicles were part of the lend/lease pact or do you think they got them in another way?

Great photos, Thanks Patrick - loads of inspiration for dios ...

Those trucks are most likely remains from France/Dunkirk - the germans got huge amounts of softskins on that account.

Interesting photos of Marder II, can anybody indentify the trailer ?

Hi Robert

Thank you so much for "pushing" Patrick to publish his grandfathers photo album! It is a great treasure for all of us to share and enjoy.

A Big Thank you to Patrick Busch for your gesture

Skipper

Hi Patrick,

It would be nice if you could put some more applicable comments with these pictures. Íf that is possible of course, since they are very brief...
Very nice pictures

Riveting feature. The fact that it was 'someones' photo album made it very touching.

Thanks for the photos and work on this.

Thank you, I enjoyed seeing them.
All very interesting photos.

Jan,

The trailer could be one of 2-3 general types used and I wish we could see more of it. It’s likely to be a towed unit for a couple of 45 gallon Fuel Drums which were pretty common during the German invasion of Russia and bearing in mind the rather stretched supply lines. See Plan No. G80 by Geoff Lacey. Alternatively, but not so likely, is that this is a 500Kg general open civilian trailer, Plan G86 from the same series refers. Then again it could be the Sd.Ah.31 ammunition trailer normally towed by the Sd.Kfz.252, Plan No. G138. All Plans are available from: - Mr Geoff Lacey, 315A South Lane, New Malden, Surrey, KT3 5RR, UK. NB: Please enclose SAE if in UK or 2-4 International Reply Coupons for US to cover postage.

Another probable possibility is the Sd.Ah.51 flak trailer chassis converted to carry an ammunition caisson. These were field modifications whereby a simple elongated box structure was added to the single axle 2-wheeled chassis. Pictures show these normally behind a 3.7 flakvierling carried on the German Sd.Kfz.7 Halftrack. A rough plan appeared in Tankette Volume 6/1 many years ago. A more up to date rendering was published in Tankette 34/3.

Back Issues (if available) from: President Gary Williams at [email protected]
Present Internet Page: http://www.mafva.org.uk
Membership Page:- http://www.mafva.org/Membership.asp

Regards, John-B [Trailer fanatic!]
MAFVA Information Officer

thx to all for your kind comments.
but a very special thanks goes to robert for taking his time to digitally sign all the pics and of course to vinnie and jurjen for pulling the strings in the background.

regarding the brief comments on the pictures: most of the pictures were glued in a photo album. a few lay loosely in the album and had a short title on the background, so i was able to to name the river as dnjepr or the city as kiev. the memory and total background to the other pictures is lost since my grandpa passed away last year after being disease-ridden for a long time.

maybe i will see to write a set of more complex comments at the weekend, but i'm not an expert on german softskins or captured vehicles.

Thanks for the pictures Patrick.

Does anyone know what divisional insignia (the drawn bow on the vehicle's right front fender) is on the truck in the carwash picture is?

Thanks for sharing these photos.

I think the vehicles with bow emblem could be from 197.Inf.Div. Over the winter of 42-43 they were attached to the 9.Armee and in the Rshew area.

More interestingly is your grave photo which might warrant further research. There's only one Gef. Karl Kindschuh listed on the Volksbund (the German war graves service) and he's buried in La Cambe in France. Not sure if you can check the writing on the grave marker but his DOB was 5/5/21 and he was listed as KIA on D-Day. It could well be a different soldier as so many who died serving on the eastern front have no known grave and aren't registered on the Volksbund.

i always was interested in the unit's name my grandpa served in. maybe you are right, according to Feldgrau.com, the divisional emblem would fit, but i'm not sure if the bow is more something of an emblem on company or regiment level.

Regarding Gefreiter Karl Kindschuh, it may have been a common name during that time. I don't have access to the photos (physical or digital) until the weekend, but then i will make a scan at a far larger resolution to get the dates.

hy patrik well thanks a lot for this album it was very exiting ,and i wich i had a grand father like yours in the german army in ww2. and by the way thanks for charing it with us.