World War II, the Last War Heroes by Stephen Bull

Author:Stephen Bull
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: World War II: The Last War Heroes
ISBN: 9781780962047
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2011-10-07T16:00:00+00:00

The German 8cm medium infantry mortar, from the British manual Enemy Weapons (Part V). Infantry mortars were quick to set up and relatively light for the size of the projectile. The mortar bomb was launched at a high trajectory and it was often possible to put more than one bomb in the air before the first landed. Aim was achieved by adjusting the elevation and traverse. But to those on the receiving end it always seemed accurate enough. As Canadian Andy Anderson remembered, ‘It got to be a standing joke that if you got out of your trench and rattled your mess tin the Germans would put a mortar in it’. (Author’s Collection)

As Doug Vidler put it they ‘lambasted us’ at the closing of the Falaise Gap, ‘being shelled so bad’ that it made it impossible to get a secure position for his team to set up its mortars. Some notion of the ferocity of the action was given when a badly wounded despatch rider he knew was loaded up for transportation. Vidler was sure that he had lost his leg:

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.