Corinth Canal

[HansBolter]

So, I was rereading Grenadiers by Kurt "Panzer" Meyer last night and came across his description of his drive southward in command of the ISS Aufklarungs Abteilung.

Apparently they were driving southward to the west of the isthmus without an oppurtunity to drive down the isthmus itself. He found himself in a coastal town on the gulf with a 10 kilometer gap of water between him and Peloponesia (sp?). Being the driven "have to keep moving forward" type that he was he quickly decided to round up a fleet of fishing boats and start ferrying his toops across along with as many of their motorcycles and antitank guns as they could fit on the fishing boats. He found two large fishing cutters and a number of smaller boats and sent his first wave across.

As he waited impaitently for the return of his "fleet" and news of their success Sepp Dietrich drives up in his command car, climbs out and starts berating him for "using my boys this way". Sepp had a great concern for his troops and always sent his commanders off with the admonishment "Bring my boys back". In the middle of this embarrassing ass chewing, in front of his troops no less, the two large cutters return laden with British prisoners. Sepp stopped in mid ass chewing, and turned and walked away without another word, leaving Meyer to complete his operation. The next day in Sepp's command post, he offers his hand to Meyer and says "I thought you had gone crazy yetseday Kurt, but I was wrong. It was brilliant. Now sit down and tell me how you ever got such a crazy idea".

After getting most of his battalion across without their armored cars, they commandeered every useable civilian vehicle they could get their hands on for the drive south to link up with the falschirmjaeger at the canal. Meyer describes this "gypsy" caravan as using a luxury limosine to tow an antitank gun, with mortars sticking out of sports cars and the pionier platoon riding in a bus.

I'm gonna have to go back to the Corinth Canal scenario and have a look at the estab for the aufklarungs abtielung. I'll bet we don't have any luxury limosines, sports cars or buses in there. [:D]

[06 Maestro]

Now that's a "field expedient method". Too bad one of those "boy's" didn't have a camera.