german after action report

Discussion in 'Axis Units' started by krazykaiser, Jan 19, 2012.

  1. Heimbrent

    Heimbrent Well-Known Member

    hi thanks for the awesome translation it was very interesting sorry about the quality of the pics my scanner isnt working right now so i had to use my phone here is the rest. Also i included some pics of the other document i found in the envelope with this. thanks again

    Sorry mate, you'll have to do better than that. Transcribing and translating is a helluva lot of work, so I kindly beg you to put more effort in it, too.
    Make some decent scans (or photographs) of the whole document, then I'll get the rest done when I have time.
     
    Owen likes this.
  2. Drew5233

    Drew5233 #FuturePilot 1940 Obsessive

    Great work Kate and I have to agree with you. Racisim aside British war diaries can be a bit pompus and flowery at time - all good stuff for morale, what what.

    Once the whole file is transcribed I will try and add some more meat to it although it may not be a lot if there is no BEF involvement.
     
    Heimbrent likes this.
  3. BrianM59

    BrianM59 Senior Member

    The style seems consistent with German material from the war diary of the 6th Infantry Division in 1940 I have read and does come across as very 'gung-ho' - to recall the spirit of 'the boys of Langemarck' who reputedly walked arm in arm into allied fire seems straight from the teacher in All Quiet on the Western Front'. I have read many British unit war diaries from both wars , although nowhere near as many as Drew, but they range from the terse and sketchy to the positively jingoistic. Generally speaking from my experience, in WW1 diaries you read no mention of soldiers, they are referred to as 'OR's' or 'NCO's" but no names, whereas in WW2, you do at least get names of individuals, but I haven't come across anything as self-consciously literary as the German examples - perhaps the 1000 year Reich was still very fresh in their minds and it would be interesting to compare with some later examples from 1945?

    I also think Heimbrent/Kate has a point - people on this forum are amazingly kind and generous, but they can't work miracles - I have paid translators and it ain't cheap, so buy a scanner, it's the least you can do -even the cheapest printers have scanners now and I'm talking £25 which is less than you'd pay a translation service for an hour's work.
     
    Heimbrent likes this.
  4. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    Or even copy it the old fashioned way on a photocopier & post it to someone on the forum who can translate it?
    Takes time but it's worked for me in the past, back in the old days, pre-internet.
    (do I sound really old?)
     
  5. BrianM59

    BrianM59 Senior Member

    Or even copy it the old fashioned way on a photocopier & post it to someone on the forum who can translate it?
    Takes time but it's worked for me in the past, back in the old days, pre-internet.
    (do I sound really old?)

    Blimey no, I moan at students who complain they don't get e-mails back as they're used to instant Facebooking. I remember telephone calls - still better than an e-mail any day - and I used to write hundreds and hundreds of letters - Christmas was always new fountain pen time...
     
  6. chick42-46

    chick42-46 Senior Member

    Is the second document some sort of criminal record?

    Using Google translate, I wonder if someone got a 10 reichsmark fine (RM 10 ... geldstrafe) for something they did to a pigeon/carrier pigeon (vergeliens gegen die brieftauben)?
     
  7. krazykaiser

    krazykaiser Junior Member

    yes the second document appears to have been taken from a police booking log theres writing in pencil on the back which says the fine was paid in full
    still working on getting a scanner i looked all over town to find a photo copier but no luck as of yet. thanks for all the interest and again please accept my apologies for the crappy pictures. Also found with these documents were a large government building flag, a triangular pennant about 6 feet in length, an iron cross second class and a bunch of photos and pins
     
  8. BrianM59

    BrianM59 Senior Member

    Is the second document some sort of criminal record?

    Using Google translate, I wonder if someone got a 10 reichsmark fine (RM 10 ... geldstrafe) for something they did to a pigeon/carrier pigeon (vergeliens gegen die brieftauben)?

    It's Captain Blackadder and the plump delicious pigeon, Speckled Jim.
     
  9. PeterG

    PeterG Senior Member

    Here's a translation of the text (probably not so accurate but not so quick either *gasp*)
    Just seen this. My goodness, quite a lot of work! Very interesting, and very well done.
     
  10. Andreas

    Andreas Working on two books

    Ratsch-Bumm roughly translates as 'screech-bang', and refers in this context to any light field gun that got used in direct fire mode and where the impact crash followed the bang of the round being fired almost immediately (in this case Frech 75mle97, but also Soviet 76.2mm or even the 25-pdr).

    All the best

    Andreas
     
  11. BrianM59

    BrianM59 Senior Member

    Ratsch-Bumm roughly translates as 'screech-bang', and refers in this context to any light field gun that got used in direct fire mode and where the impact crash followed the bang of the round being fired almost immediately (in this case Frech 75mle97, but also Soviet 76.2mm or even the 25-pdr).

    All the best

    Andreas

    As in the WW1 phrase - "whizz-bang" I presume?
     
  12. Andreas

    Andreas Working on two books

    Indeed.

    All the best

    Andreas
     
  13. Earthican

    Earthican Senior Member

    Interesting document. Many thanks to Heimbrent for the translation.

    http://www.ww2talk.com/forum/axis-units/42340-german-after-action-report-2.html#post472099

    I did some searching for some background on this action and found this excerpt from Google Books. It appears the action described in the document was after the major battle to breakout of the Amiens bridgehead. A fascinating battle that I would like to learn more about.

    On Infantry - John Alan English, Bruce I. Gudmundsson - Google Books


    Using these two passages I tried to locate the action on Google Maps. Attached I circled my guesses for the "softwood forest" (blue) and the "large barn" (red). There were not many isolated farm complexes near Mailly. Of course many things have changed since 1940 but much remains.

    Sidenote if one wants an idea of how farms looked pre-mechanization (small narrow fields), check some areas in east Europe by satellite.


    "Just then we get the order to advance to the assembly area above Morisel. The battalion’s CO personally groups the units. Under the cover of a small softwood forest we’re shown the objective. It’s a remarkable/suspicious barn on top of the hill before us – Hill 102! What secrets does it harbour? So far we can see practically nothing of the enemy. We are explained the deployment/formation of the attacking units. On our right there’s the Inf. Rgt. 116, on our left the 6th Coy. Our Coy, the 1st is to attack with the 1st platoon on the left, then the 2nd on the left and the 3rd on the right.

    .....

    The slope before us is covered with hedges and woods which are so typical for the French landscape. They provide shade in the heat of today’s day and make us want to disappear in them. But we’re careful. We made enough [bad] experiences with the French defensive tactics. So we fix bayonets and get pistols ready. We search the hedges but find no enemy. We keep going.

    Now open terrain lies before us. We can still walk upright because the enemy can’t see us here. But his artillery is heavily shelling us. We move right a little [to evade enemy fire] but keep going in the direction of the barn which can be made out as big, striking point on the horizon. At the right side of the barn we see another of those woods. And on side, on the same level there’s a village, it has to be Mailly. From that direction we can still hear heavy MG and gun fire. We, on the left flank of the attacking units have advanced much further, thanks to the favourable terrain."

    [not bad for my 300th post!!!]
     

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