[烛光生存狂]-德国"虎王"的点滴回忆

King Tiger: eyewitness Account (courtesy of Panzer Lehr).

"My name is Mike Veres and I, too, am a fan of the King Tiger. Yes, it was an awesome tank, and I am writing this to put your mind at ease as to whether or not it was a "paper tiger."

"Six years ago, I worked with an older gentleman named Jon Klaus. He was a WW-2 vet who had had first-hand experience against the King Tiger, having then been in command of an M4 Sherman. One day, at lunch, he and I started talking about things in general, and we ended up on the topic of AFVs. He mentioned how he really hated/respected the Tiger tank. As our conversation continued, I asked him to draw what the tank he called a "Tiger" looked like. I wanted to verify his story, plus find out just what tank it possibly could have been, since a lot of WW-2 vets call anything big with a long gun a 'Tiger'.

"The vehicle was burned into his memory. What he drew was indeed the outline of the Tiger II, not the Panther or Tiger I. His story goes like this:

"His and two other Shermans came upon this Tiger in a very large break in a forest. The range he estimated from memory to be around 700 yards at first encounter. The Shermans opened fire. Two shells hit the glacis plate of the Tiger and bounced off. The Tiger returned fire and blew up the M4 to Jon's left. The two remaining M4s started to retreat for cover, firing as they went. None of their shells hit the Tiger. The Tiger fired again, and Jon's other platoon mate got its turret blown off, but Jon's M4 made it to cover.

"Later, two more "Easy-8" M4s showed up, along with three M10s. One Easy-8 tried to flank the Tiger under cover, but was caught by German infantry antitank weapons. Then the Americans decided to rush the Tiger with superior numbers: after the gunfire died down, one Easy-8 and all three M10s had been destroyed by this solitary Tiger.

"Jon told me that he had counted 18 shell marks on the front surfaces of the Tiger, which eventually retreated to just inside the first row of trees at the other end of the opening of the forest.

"What arrived next Jon described as a "Tiger killer." When I asked him for specifics, all he could remember was that it looked like an M10 but with a longer barrel; my assumption has been that this was an M36 tank destroyer. Jon said that the "Tiger killer" took two shots at the Tiger: one missed and the second hit the front plate in a "shower of sparks." The Tiger then returned fire and put a shell through the M36's glacis plate, blowing it up.

"Jon said the men around him were totally in awe of this German tank and its crew. He still did not understand why he did not die that day like the rest of the guys in the other tanks. He kept telling me how he had never been scared like he was that day. When I asked him what became of this Tiger, he said he did not know for sure, as he had heard only rumors -- he was ordered to pull back while they brought up more "Tiger killers". The rumors he heard said that the Tiger was either destroyed by an air attack (likely) or taken out by another M10 (less likely, unless it got real close)..."

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