Das Reich (40 page)
The armoured half-track personnel carrier (Fig. 7), universally known within the German Army as the SPW, was produced in scores of variants. An armoured division such as the Das Reich possessed more than 300 of them, some mounted with mortars, 75 mm anti-tank guns or flamethrowers, others armed only with machine guns, for use as infantry personnel carriers.
The
Schwerer Panzerspähwagen
(Fig. 8) was armed with a 20 mm cannon, carried a crew of 4 and possessed a maximum speed of more than 50 mph. The DR’s
Aufklärungsabteilung
possessed one company of these armoured cars.
In addition to the above armoured vehicles, the DR possessed a further armoured battalion of
Panzerjaeger
self-propelled anti-tank guns, 4 battalions of self-propelled guns and howitzers, 1 self-propelled anti-aircraft gun battalion, and some 50 towed flak and field guns. The division had a total establishment of more than 3,000 vehicles, 359 of them armoured, in addition to the tanks.
Abbreviations
Pz = Panzer M/C = motorcycles men = officers, NCOs and men Regt = Regiment Abt = Abteilung (Battalion) Pz = Panzer-Grenadier G/H = Gun/Howitzer F/T = Flamethrower Mor = Mortar Art = Artillery SPG = Self-propelled gun NblW = Nebelwerfer StuG = Sturmgeschütz Recce = Reconnaissance Pi = Pioneer Sig = Signals
Note
These figures are for the division at full establishment. In June 1944 the DR’s vehicle strength was substantially lower. Excluded are medical and MP units, etc.
The principal sources for this book have been interviews with the survivors of those whose story it is. Some inner files of SOE remain closed in perpetuity, but I am grateful to the Foreign Office archivist, Colonel E. G. Boxshall, for providing the answers to certain specific questions from these records, and above all for copies of the relevant Jedburgh team after-action reports. The German Army’s archives at Freiburg supplied the surviving relevant signal traffic and situation reports from the War Diaries of Army Group G, 66th Reserve Corps and 58th Corps. The Public Record Office contains many of the files of Special Forces HQ, G-3 SHAEF and the SAS Regiment, including the reports and signal logs of Bulbasket. I have made extensive use of scores of regional Resistance publications, especially the journal
R4
, Baron Philippe de Gunzbourg loaned me a copy of his unpublished memoir
Souvenirs du Sud-Ouest
. Mrs Judith Hiller allowed me to read and hear the marvellous notes and tapes that her husband George made for his unwritten memoir.
The books listed below are not a comprehensive guide to Resistance literature, which would be enormous, but a selection of those which I have found most helpful. Their inclusion is not an indication of merit – indeed some are wildly inaccurate – but merely a guide to their relevance.
Anon –
Dordogne martyre
. Paris, 1945.Anon –
Maquis de Corrèze
. Paris, 1975.Anon –
Mémorial de la Résistance et des victimes du nazisme en Haute-Vienne
. Limoges, 1975.Aron, Robert –
De Gaulle Before Paris
. Putnam, 1963.
De Gaulle Triumphant
. Putnam, 1964.
Astier De La Vigerie, Emmanuel d’ –
Les Dieux et les Hommes
. Paris, 1952.Beau and Gaubusseau –
R5: Les SS en Limousin, Périgord et Quercy
. Paris, 1969.Beck, Philip –
Oradour
. Leo Cooper, 1979.Bennett, Ralph –
Ultra in the West
. Hutchinson, 1979.Bergeret and Gregoire –
Messages Personnels
. Bordeaux, 1945.Best, Geoffrey –
Humanity in Warfare
. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1980.Brogan, D. W. –
Development of Modern France 1870–1939
. Hamish Hamilton, 1940.Buckmaster, Maurice –
They Fought Alone
. Odhams, 1958.Calmette, A. –
Les Equipes Jedburgh dans la Bataille de France
. Paris, 1966.Cave-Brown, Anthony –
Bodyguard of Lies
. W. H. Allen, 1976.Churchill, Peter –
Of Their Own Choice
. Hodder, 1952.Colby, William –
Honourable Men
. Hutchinson, 1978.Cookridge, E. H. –
Inside SOE
. Arthur Barker, 1966.Cooper, Matthew – The
German Army 1933–1945
. Macdonald and Janes, 1976.
The Phantom War
. Macdonald and Janes, 1979.
Delarue, Jacques –
Trafics et Crimes sous l’Occupation
. Paris, 1968.Durand, P. –
Histoire de SNCF pendant la Guerre
. Paris, 1968.Ehrlich, Blake –
The French Resistance
. Chapman & Hall, 1966.Farran, Roy –
Winged Dagger
. Collins, 1948.Foot, M. R. D. –
Resistance
. Eyre Methuen, 1976.
Six Faces of Courage
. Eyre Methuen, 1978.SOE in France
. HMSO, 1966.
Guichetau, Gérard –
La Das Reich et le Coeur de la France
. Paris, 1974.Guingouin, Georges –
Quatre Ans de Lutte sur le Sol Limousin
. Paris, 1974.Harrison, D. I. –
Such Men are Dangerous
. Cassell, 1957.Harris Smith, R. –
OSS: The History of America’s First CIA
. University of California, 1972.Hinsley, F. H. –
British Intelligence in World War II
. HMSO, 1979.Hislop, John –
Anything but a Soldier
. Michael Joseph, 1965.Kruuse, Jens –
Madness at Oradour
. Secker and Warburg, 1969.Lacouture, Jean –
André Malraux
. Deutsch, 1975.Langelaan, George –
Knights of the Floating Silk
. Hutchinson, 1959.Macksey, Kenneth –
The Partisans of Europe in World War II
, Hart-Davis MacGibbon, 1975.Malraux, André –
Antimémoires
.Michel, Henri –
Histoire de la Résistance en France
. Paris, 1972.
The Shadow of War: Resistance in Europe 1939–45
. Deutsch, 1972.
Millar, George –
Maquis
. Heinemann, 1956.Minney, R. J. –
Carve Her Name with Pride
. Newnes, 1956.Morgan, William –
The OSS and I
. New York, 1957.Mountfield, David –
The Partisans
. Hamlyn, 1979.Nogueres, Henri –
Histoire de la Résistance en France
. Paris, 1968–75.Noireau, Robert –
Le Temps des partisans
. Paris, 1978.Passy, Colonel –
Souvenirs: 2me Bureau, Londres
. Monte Carlo, 1947.
Souvenirs: 10 Duke Street
. Monte Carlo, 1947.Souvenirs: Missions secrètes
. Paris, 1951.
Paxton, Robert –
Vichy France
. Barrie and Jenkins, 1980.Quay, Bruce –
Das Reich
. Osprey, 1978.Remy and Bourdelle –
Les Balcons de Tulle
. Paris, 1963.Schneid, Sadi –
Beutedeutscher
. Askania, 1979.Schramm, Percy (editor) –
The OKW War Diaries
. 4 vols., Frankfurt, 1961.Shulman, Milton –
Defeat in the West
. Heinemann, 1963.Soulier, A. –
Le Drame de Tulle
. Tulle, 1971.Speidel, Hans –
We Defended Normandy
. Herbert Jenkins, 1953.Stein, George –
The Waffen SS at War
. Oxford, 1966.Terraine, John –
The Smoke and the Fire
. Sidgwick and Jackson, 1980.Tillon,
C – Les FTP
. Paris, 1962.Trouillé, Pierre –
Journal d’un Préfet pendant l’Occupation
.Vomécourt, Philippe de –
Who Lives to See the Day
.Walters, Anne-Marie –
Moondrop to Gascony
. Macmillan, 1946.Warner, Philip –
The Special Air Service
. Kimber, 1972.Weidinger, Otto –
Kameraden bis zum Ende
. Oldendorf, 1978.White, Frieda –
Three Rivers of France
. Faber, 1952.Zuckerman, S. –
From Apes to Warlords
. Hamish Hamilton, 1978.