Panzer Commander Hermann Balck by Stephen Robinson

Author:Stephen Robinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Exisle Publishing Pty Ltd

The officer stood out in the open directing the fire, the crews crouched behind the shields and fed and fired the guns while everything the enemy had was being pelted at them. . . . They looked like a drawing by someone who had never been to a war, but the whole thing was unreal. They got two tanks, lost one gun and pulled the other gun and their wounded out, having done what they could. There was nothing to stop the tanks then, and they formed up and came on.10

After E and F Troops reached the rearguard, some of the guns deployed forward to support the armoured cars while the remainder joined D Troop at the gun line.

Lamb’s rearguard consisted of D Company (2/2nd Battalion) on the left, C Company (2/3rd Battalion) in the centre and B Company (2/3rd Battalion) on the right on the high ground east of the road. Lamb positioned most of the Bren gun carriers to extend both flanks, but he retained the remaining carriers and D Company (2/3rd Battalion), now only thirty men strong, as a reserve while the New Zealand cavalry formed a protecting screen in front of the rearguard. Allen felt confident that the rearguard would hold the Germans until after dark and he planned a fighting withdrawal as the men could fall back to other points on the road to Larissa to create successive rearguard positions. In the fading light of early evening, Lamb observed panzers moving south from Evangelismos entering Makrikhorion.

Kampfgruppe Balck, led by the 2nd Company (1st Panzer Battalion) and the 7th Company (304th Infantry Regiment), advanced south towards the rearguard followed by the mountain soldiers from the 1st and 2nd Battalions (143rd Regiment). The Germans halted while the Luftwaffe attacked Hill 214 as Lamb observed: ‘The troops fought back vigorously to cover the intervening ground under cover of the fire from the planes and very quickly after we were in contact with the enemy.’11 The Luftwaffe in Greece played little direct role during land battles and, as Balck explained, ‘there was essentially no air-ground cooperation. I saw only one Stuka attack.’12

The panzers resumed their advance after the Luftwaffe departed, followed by the infantry. The Germans unleashed heavy mortar fire on the defenders prior to assaulting the rearguard. As dusk approached, the panzers engaged the New Zealand armoured cars, but Allied artillery disrupted their advance. The panzers slowly moved through the trees, forcing the cavalry screen troops to fall back to the main defensive position. Major Stewart, the 26th Battery commander, observed the action from the hills and witnessed Major Russell ‘magnificently handling his squadron’.13 After the Germans reached the rearguard at dusk, fierce fighting erupted as at least twelve panzers broke into the position while rounds from Bren guns and Boys anti-tank rifles bounded off their armour. Lamb witnessed the determined resistance of his troops:

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