This video is quite interesting by Mike Fenton. One would hope that any remains of WW2 German vehicles that are still left abandoned in the Golan Heights will be rescued.
Last German Panzer Battle - Six Day War 1967 - YouTube
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This video is quite interesting by Mike Fenton. One would hope that any remains of WW2 German vehicles that are still left abandoned in the Golan Heights will be rescued.
Last German Panzer Battle - Six Day War 1967 - YouTube
There is only so much space for old tanks and only so much interest. They will probably remain there until only a rust heap remains, or somebody collects them for scrap.
They also might remain there as memorials and war graves.
A funny story about the Golan wrecks. I work with a news service that has an office in Israel. In the late 1980s, a colleague of mine was recording a scene for a short history of the Six Day War, standing in front of one of these disabled tanks with his crew shooting his narration. The twenty-year-old wreck had weeds growing out its hatches and was encrusted with rust. When they finished and began packing up the gear, a van pulled up and a crew from one of the "big three" American news services piled out and came over to the tank. "Hi, guys!" The other crew set up, carefully set up their reporter to cover rust and weeds, and began, waving towards the tank behind him: "I'm here on the scene of today's violent clash between the PLO and Israeli defense forces..."
Bob
If I was Israeli I would see a certain meaning in ex-German tanks knocked out on the borders; perhaps they remain there for that reason?
Mark Fenton's work reminds us how much of history is completely missed by most historians: and often because they prefer to.
https://wwiiafterwwii.wordpress.com/2016/09/04/panzers-in-the-golan-heights/Quote:
Originally Posted by Surpmil
This link will take you to an excellent site, including a good post on the subject of this thread.
Proved that Centurion tanks could do exactly what they were designed to do, take-out German armour. They just did it 20+ years later than originally intended.
I would have thought that any WW2 German armoured vehicle would be worth a significant amount of money to collectors in the US, Russia or the UK, even wrecks.
Centurions were the perfection development of British tanks at the end of WWII, and were subsequently still further improved. The German Mk IV tanks were at their ultimate development before the end of WWII.
I don't think you're going to be able to get anything out of that area...the Israelis' don't care about that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Flying10uk
There been better candidates for restoration that have been recovered from the former areas of the Soviet Bloc in the past couple of decades as to not bother with the risks associated with trying get anything out of the Golan Heights, given the condition they are mostly in, although the famous USA collector, the late Jacques Littlefield did acquire one of the Syrian Panzer IV's from an Israeli museum back in 2003, and its now part of the Collings Foundation when Collings bought all of the Littlefield Collection after he passed away. Littlefield also had a Panther V that was recovered from a fresh water swamp somewhere in NE Europe (might have been eastern Poland?) and that was restored including being able to rebuild and get running the original Maybach V12 into running condition after being submerged for 50 years...!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Flying10uk
Yes, I think that it is the "restricted access" that is the reason that more has not been recovered from the Golan Heights.Quote:
Originally Posted by browningautorifle
The 1948 war, was fought with WW2 surplus on both sides.
Because of the "convoluted" politics at the time (and only the names have been changed to protect the guilty), it was a mash-up on the battlefields. The Israelis received quite a lot of ex-German equipment, from the Soviets, funneled through Czechoslovakia, as it then was. Egypt, Jordan, etc were supplied mainly by the Brits.So, it was not unknown to witness Spitfires dueling with Bf109s (actually Czech-built "Avias"), but with the "Messerschmidt wearing the Star of David and the Spitfires re-badged for an Arab country. Israel managed to acquire a couple of "left-over" B-17 bombers and these "found their way" to the eastern Mediterranean.
As for small arms, substantial quantities of weapons no longer needed by the Wehrmacht arrived, again, often via Czechoslovakia, but having been "collected" by the Red Army. France played a discreet role at this time as well.
What was Stalin up to?
Basically, he wanted to remove both British colonial "influence" AND the increasing US presence from the region. So, if the region could be destabilized by arming BOTH sides, then the place would be ripe for a political realignment. Don't forget that the Nazis put quite a bit of effort into cultivating Arab "nationalism" during WW2. The Mufti of Jerusalem was a regular visitor to Berlin. Hitler wanted access and "influence", the Mufti wanted the usual power and influence, so a deal was struck. Hitlers enthusiasm for killing Jews and his willingness to provide weapons and training were big features. Then, there was the Suez Canal.
When all of that came unglued in 1945, The Mufti and his mates needed a new "patron / strong horse". Who better than Stalin and the Red Army?.
Note that by the time of the death of Stalin (great movie, by the way) the wheels were well in motion. The '56 war was "round 2", by which time, several Arab sates were well down the road to being re-armed by the Soviets, but there was still a lot of the old German surplus on the books. However, the Soviets were moving beyond supplying "used guns" and into industrial-scale developments, particularly in Egypt.
Also remember the other "events" of 1956:
The Soviets were stirring things up in Aden and other places as part of their "de-colonization" programme. Meanwhile, the ruthlessly crushed a civil uprising in Hungary, re-learning some hard lessons in urban warfare in the process. The Hungary "lesson" was the primary operation; Aden was the "diversion". It worked as intended. The parlous state of Brit intelligence services (primarily owned by the Soviets since the 1930s), did not help, either.
The Israeli War of Independence was also the only time that Spitfires fought against Spitfires, as the IAF acquired 50 odd Spitfires from the same Czech source as their Avia S-199's, and the Egyptian's had Spitfires as well, as did of course the RAF in the area, and the IAF even shot down some unarmed RAF recce Spitfire's on the last day of the war, mistaking them for Egyptian AF Spitfires, ironically, one of the IAF pilots was a Canadian WW2 'ace' who had served with the RAF during the war.
Prior to this Egyptian AF Spitfire's had strafed a RAF base, and RAF Spitfires took off and shot down 5 of the Egyptian AF Spitfire's, which I think maybe the last time RAF pilots flying RAF aircraft have scored air-to-air victories.
Buzz Beurling? George Beurling - WikipediaQuote:
Originally Posted by GeeRam
There was a documentary recently about Buzz Beurling, a few weeks ago, here in the UK. My understand from the documentary was that he hadn't actually made it to Israel because the aircraft that he was ferrying had crashed en-route, killing him. In other words he was traveling to Israel to join the Israeli airforce and also delivering an aircraft at the same time when there was an accident that killed him. Obviously the documentary may have been wrong or I may have misunderstood what was said in it but if he was killed before he got to Israel, he can't have flown for them in combat.
Buerlings plane crashed and burned on take off from Rome IIRC. Some people felt it was not an accident, but who knows. The same was said about Gen. Sikorski and many others.
I have an elderly friend who had a relation who was killed when the multi-engined a/c he was piloting crashed after take off from a UK base in WWII. By my friend's account, the crash was found to be caused by sabotage upon investigation, but I can't recall his description of exactly how it was done now except that it involved either a blockage or disconnection in the engine bays. When we meet again I must ask him about that, given his high intelligence and veracity, I don't question the account.
As for the USSR supplying the nascent state of Israel, the Zionist movement was almost entirely socialist before independence, and Stalin no doubt hoped to encourage a drift to the left there, whereas in fact the realities of power probably had the opposite effect.
The Spit MkIX that lives down the road from me fought in this war and then made its way to become a playground toy in a kibbutz until it was rescued and restored.
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo.../15spit1-1.jpg
Bob
Makes you wonder where they could have gotten parts for a PKW IV. A Centurion's 105 mm L7 gun would have flattened any W.W. II MBT. Except maybe a T34.
Knew a guy who was a participant in The Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War. Rode in half tracks.
This is why you do not roam around the Golan heights
That is the Golan Heights in the background
Greenline in Nicosia Cyprus is the same. There used to be a huge minefield up north of the city just south of the airport but I think that's gone now. The buildings in the UNPA were mined or booby trapped and could be touchy.