Lockdown Research (1 Viewer)

[Guest]

I have been to Normandy 5 times in the last 7 years, door to door from my home in England to Bayeux [where I tend to stay] is around 8 hours drive, including a 4.5 hour ferry. I have decided to

look at research, starting yesterday I decided to pick a Weapons Nest [WN] on the D-Day beaches and research into what happened, who defended it, which units attacked the position and what happened. I know a reasonable amount but have decided to take a logical approach to increase the depth of my knowledge. I have started with Omaha Beach WN60 and then will work along Omaha Beach, then it will be Sword Beach and so on. After the beaches I will look at individual Batteries such as Mervill, Maisy, etc. I have over a hundred books on D-dDay and Normandy, plus there are tonnes online and YouTube is a great for video tours etc. I also have close to a thousand digital pictures which I am also sorting.

Are any other Treefroggers researching and if yes? What?
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[larso]

Mine's a far more modest project but I've been researching that fairly common graphic of the German divisions in France on D-day. It's the one that has little tank symbols for the panzer divisions and white (or clear?) ones for forming or rebuilding units. What got me into this was some recent reading but also the placement of the 19th Panzer division in Belgium (or Holland?), though it never left the Eastern Front. There've been some other errors too (it doesn't show the 2nd Falschirmjaeger division at Brest for instance). Researching the history of the divisions is fairly straightforward, so I'm going further into strength states now - particularly of the panzer divisions.

This is a good topic for a thread.

 

[Guest]

Mine's a far more modest project but I've been researching that fairly common graphic of the German divisions in France on D-day. It's the one that has little tank symbols for the panzer divisions and white (or clear?) ones for forming or rebuilding units. What got me into this was some recent reading but also the placement of the 19th Panzer division in Belgium (or Holland?), though it never left the Eastern Front. There've been some other errors too (it doesn't show the 2nd Falschirmjaeger division at Brest for instance). Researching the history of the divisions is fairly straightforward, so I'm going further into strength states now - particularly of the panzer divisions.

This is a good topic for a thread.

Sounds interesting, unit strengths both in manpower and equipment is something that has always interested me, I have read a lot on the Battle of the Bulge and with a bit more in-depth research you can actually find out just what the manpower/equipment of a unit actually was, that is why I always take with a pinch of salt when historians write about a regiment or division, etc. Actual German strengths [as well as Allied] were not what people thought. Two things about that Battle that always peaked my interest, was firstly there is a lot of information and books wrote on the SS in the battle, but it was actually a German Army unit that penetrated closer to the Meuse. The second thing was the Massacres, the massacre at Malmedy, this atrocity fascinated me and I looked at it from the perspective of why and how it happened? with three reasons, I accept there could be more,
A/. The Germans just shot the US troops in a calculated way.
B/. Some US prisoners made a run for it and the Germans began to sh0ot at them and then more ran and it just snowballed.
C/. The shooting started by accident as another German unit came along and thought they were not prisoners and opened fire and then the GIs ran and it snowballed into the massacre.

There are pros and cons for all the above, having visited the site on many occasions I can see reasons for/against them all, firstly there were too many who escaped to be reason A, the Germans were basically too efficient to allow that to happen. The confessions of German soldiers after the battle seem to point A or C but many of those there did not survive the war and those that did confess were basically tortured and confessions under that circumstance have to taken with that in mind. US survivors accounts can point to all 3 reasons,

 

[Mirof]

Mine's a far more modest project but I've been researching that fairly common graphic of the German divisions in France on D-day. It's the one that has little tank symbols for the panzer divisions and white (or clear?) ones for forming or rebuilding units. What got me into this was some recent reading but also the placement of the 19th Panzer division in Belgium (or Holland?), though it never left the Eastern Front. There've been some other errors too (it doesn't show the 2nd Falschirmjaeger division at Brest for instance). Researching the history of the divisions is fairly straightforward, so I'm going further into strength states now - particularly of the panzer divisions.

This is a good topic for a thread.

19th was in Holland ( The Netherlands ) for restructutation at that time, never fought France
https://www.axishistory.com/books/150-germany-heer/heer-divisionen/4040-19-panzer-division

2nd Falschirkartoffundsaurkraut , only the 6th regiment was in DDay zone
https://en.wikipedia.org/iki/2nd_Parachute_Division_(Germany)#Operational_history

This is for specialists to study, I"m not .

 

[theBaron]

I'm researching the Pennsylvania Provincial Regiment in the French-and-Indian War. It started out of my general interest in the period, having grown up in what was thinly settled Pennsylvania farmland at the time of the war, and out of specific questions to paint figures from the time. I've gotten what I can from our city library, so my next stage is to start looking at the local historical societies, starting with the Moravian historians.

Prost!
Brad

 

[larso]

Thanks Mirof,

For the 19th, my source was Mitcham's 'Hitler's Legions' but it guess the summary was too short an account to mention it. It is mentioned in Rosado & Bishop's 'Wehrmacht Panzer Divisions 1939-45' however. This even notes that the 19th received 81 Pz IVs, 79 Panthers and eight 3.7 Flakpanzer IVs.

I've just found my copy of Mitcham's 'The Panzer Legions' which has more detailed information. It still doesn't mention Holland but says the 19th and two other panzer divisions) destroyed the III Soviet Tank Corps north of Warsaw stalling the Russian Summer offensive of 1944. So it looks like it put its newly acquired tank strength to good effect.

Yes the 2nd's 6th Regt fought in Normandy, quite famously against the Band of Brothers. The other two Regts (5th & 7th??) were in Brest rebuilding after a stint in Russia. Even then they only had 5 battalions (Hitler's Paratroopers in Normandy by Villahermosa). They and their commander Ramcke were captured when the port finally fell.

 

[Mirof]

According to Stoves
Stoves, Rolf (1986). Die Gepanzerten und Motorisierten Deutschen Grossverbände 1935 – 1945. Bad Nauheim: Podzun-Pallas Verlag. ISBN 3-7909-0279-9. page 130 to 133
" The division was part of the German defensive operations and retreat through the Ukraine in late 1943 and early 1944. It was part of the successful escape of the 1st Panzer Army from the Kamenets-Podolsky pocket in April 1944. The 19th Panzer Division, almost destroyed in the previous defensive battles, was sent to the Netherlands in May 1944 to be refitted.[4] In the aftermath of Operation Bagration, the Soviet offensive that destroyed the center of the German Eastern Front, the division was sent by rail from the Netherlands back to the Eastern Front. It took part in the defence of Warsaw and the crushing of the Polish uprising. "
This text referred also to Mitcham

From
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/19th_Panzer_Division_(Wehrmacht)#/References

I checked further just by curiosity