HG Tropical Uniform Question

[Panzer Meyer]

Greetings,
I am new to the forum. (At least posting, anyway). I have a question about the HG division in Tunisia and the Sicilian/Italian Theater. Were any of the HG's Pz battalions ever sent to North Africa? I ran across a reference that indicated that a couple of Stug platoons may have been involved in the later defensive fighting, but I was wondering about the actual Panzer IV companies. I am aware that they were heavily engaged in Sicily and Italy. My main question involves the Waffenfarbe worn on the shoulder boards of their Tropical Uniforms. Would it have been rosa (pink) or white?
Thanks in advance,
CBrown

[RamJet]

Difficult question.

Personnel of the I./Panzerregiment HG was flown to Tunisia in the beginning of April 1943 but the sea transport of their Panzers never was conducted as planned so that they fought mainly without their armoured equipment as infantry. And only one month later all German troops in Africa surrendered. I have no exact information how many HG Panzer III and IV actually made it over to Tunisia at hand. Must look deeper in my sources and try to find some evidence.

Regarding the shoulder boards, I have seen pics were HG soldiers wore dark boards as well as light coloured boards on their tropical uniforms. Black HG Panzer boards existed with pink as well as white piping (see the pic). I cannot answer the question if tan boards are worn with white or pink piping.

[peterm]

Hi!

As RamJet wrote: neary EVERY possible combination of insignia was worn by the "HG"-units.
Don't know about Panzer-units, most of original HG in Africa was Flak. The "infaterie" came from FJR 5, now "Jäger-Regiment HG" (see citation).

Kind regards, Peter

[Panzer Meyer]

Gentlemen,
Thank you for your information. I am working on a historical display and trying to make it as accurate as possible. Your information will help tremendously.
CBrown

[Willi Z.]

That timeframe was a period of tremendous growth and change for the HG formation. Elements moved to Tunisia in November of 1942, and this continued into the spring of 1943. I do not believe any armor made it over though, as the division was upgraded to a Panzer Division as Tunisia was falling in 1943. Various orders changed the insignia several times during that same period, and this is well-documented in books about the HG formations. I use the Bender book frequently.

Peter is correct. I used to have numerous HG/FJ documents for that campaign and there was quite a mixture of forces. White, golden yellow, red, brown, etc would be my guess to the various branch piping colors used at that time.