The perfect ambush that hit the First Special Serive Force

[Jean-Loup]

"P.S you might old AT find positions 100m to 200m from that road turn"

Nah, the AT position was further away, in the villgae, 200m away from the bridge, perfectly lined up, as you can guess. But the guys got wasted by the infantry without doing any damage.
The way you talk about the army with recce being far ahead is waht its like today. Dont forget these were the "good old days" when there could be as many KIA's in one day, as in Iraq today in 1 year.



The stuff in this thread is only a very small amount of all the info I have acumulated on this battle. I am thinking of making a book out of it. What do you guys think?

JL

[fknorr]

...and a US officer, if he had known the Germans were not going to run like everywhere else ...JL

Run like everywhere else?

[Jean-Loup]

...like everywhere else in the southern France drive.

[J.von Canon]

Keep in mind;we're looking at positions 60 years after construction.
No way to really know which position was used for what.
Radios were limited by range,interferrence(land features,etc.)and the crest could have been a hasty commo site;not necessarily a weapons pit.
Could have had a gun net over it,or camouflage at the time too.
Many things that might,or might not be obvious here.
But there's a good field of fire shown in these photos.
If this was a dismounted rear guard then they were probably limited with what they had(probably light weapons,a few mines & demo(a guess.)
It will be interesting to see what Jean turns up.
So far,it would seem that this was a lightly equipped rear guard element...

[J.von Canon]

A final thought...

A final thought;
Jean,did I understand you to say that you did'nt find relics AT these positions,but elsewhere?
If so,maybe they are Iron Age shelters,or even later shepherds huts...
I've seen many such looking little rock structures in Ireland & elsewhere.
Just a thought...

[Radcollector]

very interesting thread,reminds me of "After the battle" magazine articles,any additional info/pics you can give us would be great!

[Von Lessel]

Very interesting thread JL, thanks for sharing.

Lee

[Jean-Loup]

"Jean,did I understand you to say that you did'nt find relics AT these positions,but elsewhere?
If so,maybe

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[Simon O.]

Those lids look similar to US 60mm mortar bomb container lids. The lack of finds is odd. It means either the positions were cleaned up very well indeed after the war or that they were occupied for only a short period of time and that no small arms fire occured from them. One thing you always seem to notice with positions occupied for a day or more is that there are normally empty food tins around. Any small arms fire and you tend to find the empty cartridge cases just outside on the right handside of the position.


Is the terrain there the kind where surface items get washed down the slope by wind, rain and snow?`



That reminds me. The snow is almost gone here.....it's almost time to take to the hills again for me too!

[Jean-Loup]

The items wouldnt be washed down hill, but at the time everything would have been perfectly visible,