In my last Sunday Rumble I made a passing reference to the difficulty - no, let's be honest, the virtual impossibility - of dealing with the German armoured behemoth of WWII - the King Tiger tank. Without boring you all to death with the techie details, suffice to say that it had virtually impervious armour and was armed with an 88mm AA gun which was deadly against all known opposition at the time up to huge ranges. I am obliged to 'SoD' for providing a link which describes one solution which was breathtaking in its simplicity and in the courage needed to carry it out. I thought it was worth sharing with you all:
James Baron, who has died aged 87, was awarded an immediate Military Medal for charging and ramming a German King Tiger tank in Normandy in 1944 while serving with Armoured Irish Guards.
On July 18 the 2nd Armoured Battalion of the Irish Guards was taking part in a powerful armoured thrust near Cagny in Operation Goodwood, which aimed to isolate Caen from the east and free the Allied forces to the west for the forthcoming breakout of Normandy.
The Irish Guards were equipped with Sherman tanks, which had proved to be a reliable fighting vehicle, but were outclassed by the German Tiger and Panther tanks. On the Western Front, the Allies had no answer to Hitler's latest weapon, the King Tiger, armed with an 88 mm gun, originally designed as an anti-aircraft gun. Intelligence reports that it was about to make its appearance in Normandy were received with considerable apprehension.
"What do we do if we meet a King Tiger?" Lance-Corporal Baron had asked his troop commander, Lieutenant John Gorman, at a briefing a few days earlier. "The only thing we can do," Gorman told his driver, "is to use naval tactics. If the 88 mm gun is pointing away from us, we shall have to use the speed of the Sherman and ram it."
On the afternoon of July 18, as Gorman came round the corner of a hedge in his Sherman, he saw four German tanks 300 yards away in the middle of a field. There was an old-fashioned Tiger, a Panther, an old Mark IV and a King Tiger - the first seen in battle on the Western Front.
The King Tiger's devastating 88 mm gun was pointing at one of Gorman's troop on the rise behind him. The Sherman's 75 mm gun was little more use than a pea-shooter against the King Tiger's armour - armour piercing shells would bounce off it. "Driver, ram!" shouted Gorman.
The Sherman crashed through a thin hedge and careered down the slope at 40 mph towards the King Tiger. With 75 yards to go before impact, the Sherman's gunner, Guardsman Scholes, fired a high-explosive shell at the King Tiger. Although it did not penetrate the armour, he felt that it would give the Germans something to worry about.
The British tank slid down beside the long barrel and struck the King Tiger hard at the rear of its right track. With the Sherman's turret only a few inches from the 88 mm weapon, Gorman's crew were like birds sitting on a sportsman's gun. On impact, both crews baled out and went in opposite directions - except one man, Guardsman Agnew, the front gunner, who, finding his exit blocked and having to scramble back to the turret, was the last out of the tank.
As Agnew dropped to the ground, he saw four men running for a ditch and promptly joined them. They were the German crew. After an exchange of cold stares, being a punctilious sort of man, he saluted smartly and disappeared into a cornfield to rejoin his comrades.
Gorman ordered Baron and the others to stay where they were; he set off on a zig-zag run through the orchards, where he found a Firefly tank. Gorman returned with the Firefly and completed the destruction of the King Tiger and the Sherman with the 17-pounder gun.
Meanwhile, the crew had been caught in an artillery barrage. When two guardsmen were wounded, Baron made a rough bed for them and stayed with his friends until they were picked up by a passing tank.
For their parts in this action, Corporal Baron received the MM and Lt Gorman the MC.
James Baron was born at Clayton-le-Moors, Lancashire, on April 15 1915 and educated at the local school. His family moved to Great Harwood when he was a boy, and at the age of 14 he was working in the textile industry.
Baron enlisted in the Coldstream Guards in 1936 and trained at the Guards Depot, Caterham, before joining the 2nd Battalion at Windsor. He purchased his discharge the following year to join the Lancashire Constabulary, but was called up in 1940 and re-enlisted in the Irish Guards.
In 1941 Baron was selected for armoured training and qualified as a tank driver on the Crusader Mark I. He joined the 2nd Armoured Battalion Irish Guards in 1942 and was promoted to lance-corporal in May. After landing with the battalion on the Arromanches beaches on July 1 1944, he fought with his unit in the drive for the Seine and across north-west Germany, ending the war near Bremen.
Having left the Army in 1946 in the rank of sergeant, Baron returned to the textile industry as a technician at the Palatine Mill, Great Harwood; he retired in 1981. He entered the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, as an In-Pensioner in 1991 but left the following year and moved to Blackburn.
My father was terribly glad that he fought in Churchills not Shermans, which he looked upon as death traps. The Churchill was well armoured and had an advantage over the German tanks in the bocage - a shorter gun barrel. You could swing a Churchill's turret in a space where a German tank was stuck. Moreover if you were close to the buggers, which was possible in the bocage country, a six-pounder sabot shell could knock them out.
Once you were out in open country you were at a disadvantage (though less of a disadvantage than the poor bastards in Shermans) in tank vs tank. So you changed the contest and called up Typhoons to wreck the German tanks or drive them away.
Posted by: dearieme | Thursday, 28 February 2013 at 13:03
Thick, sloping armour, wide tracks, and a nice big accurate gun. The King Tiger was, on the other hand, overweight and underpowered and so expensive that the Germans only ever built a handful of them. Still, a fine thing, in a nasty way. Ramming it seems like one of the only ways to get it.
Thanks for the story.
Posted by: H | Thursday, 28 February 2013 at 16:03
Another way would be for SOE operatives working in Greece to get the Greek Army to purchase hundreds of the King Tigers. The Greeks would then swan about in them despite having no intention or ability to pay. This would seriously stress out the Wehrmacht who would issue increasingly shrill demands that their Greek allies cut back on everything - which, of course, they would be reluctant to do. Repeat same process in Italy, Spain, and Ireland.
With this distraction and waste going on, the rapidly growing and modernising Chinese Army could sweep in and sort everyone out...
Posted by: Whyaxye | Thursday, 28 February 2013 at 16:38
DM, terrain, of course, is critical and I take your point about the bocage. And if the weather was clear and the comms were working, the Typhoon was deadly.
'H', I just had a quick skim through some sites, mostly wargamers who are frequently very well informed, and indeed, despite its strength the KT had its weaknesses - frequent breakdowns being one of them until the crews were better trained and more experienced.
'W', so you've been reading Ortega's link about all those expensive tanks the Germans flogged to the Greeks just before they ran out of money! Who says international politics isn't a laugh a minute?!
Posted by: David Duff | Thursday, 28 February 2013 at 20:32
Iirc, the Greek army has over 1,000 tanks - not bad for a country as broke as they are.
Granted, the KT was unreliable - in part, because it was underpowered. But I'm guessing that waiting for it to break down would be an uncomfortable experience.
Incidentally, the tank-deastroyer variant of the KT, the Jagdtiger, sported a 128mm gun. It is reported that one unfortunate American tank was destroyed after the shell had passed through two stout masonry walls before hitting it.
Posted by: H | Friday, 01 March 2013 at 13:44