Lieutenant Bill Heptinstall's M4 Sherman from New Zealand's 20th Armoured Regiment


Lieutenant Bill Heptinstall's M4 Sherman from New Zealand's 20th Armoured Regiment, lays knocked out down the side of a road next the Tiger I tank that destroyed it. 

The Tiger has been self-destroyed and abandoned by its crew, possibly leaving it there as a road block.

Florence, Italy. August 4th, 1944.

From the 13th of June to the 13th of July 1944, the New Zealand 20th Armoured Regiment was given a rest period in the Liri Valley, after its part in the push to Rome. It was a time of training and refitting for the Sherman equipped unit. On the morning of the 13th the Regiment began its march back to the war, this time it was to be part of the attack on Florence. By the 17th the Regiment was in position near the front for a brief rest at Lake Trasimene. Then on the evening of the 22nd the Regiment moved again some 70 miles to Siena, and finally to Tavarnelle on the 26th. The 27th was the day the war returned, a reconnaissance patrol dodged enemy mines but was halted by a blown bridge. On the return journey one tank slipped off the tracks it had made on the journey out and hit one of the mines. Over the next few days in association with strong infantry support the regiment pushed the enemy back through Cigliano and Pisignano, with several casualties. The enemy had armoured support in the shape of Tiger tanks. On one occasion a Tiger lurched out in front of a Sherman and hit it with its coaxial machine gun, but did not fire the main gun, presumably due to a lack of ammunition.

Two troops of tanks were given the objective of capturing the high ground near the village of Giogoli, as well as the village. These troops advanced with their infantry support on the 3rd of August. A few machine gun nests were quickly silenced by the tanks and by 0900 7 troop was on the hill and 6 troop was in Giogoli itself. The infantry had pushed further out the other side of the village by about a mile and were calling for support from the tanks. No 6  troop under Lieutenant Bill Heptinstall moved out to help the infantry After a short while they entered an olive grove and the low hanging branches caused damage to the tanks antenna compounding the earlier problems they had had with radio communication. Then one of the branches hit an open commanders hatch, ripping it from its mounting and badly injuring the Troop Sergeant, who lost part of his hand in the incident.
Even worst, this time messing about in the trees meant that contact with the infantry was lost.

Lt Heptinstall brought his troop out onto a road and began to advance at speed. The first living person they saw was a German armed with a Panzershreck. Luckily for Lt Heptinstall his hull gunner reacted quicker than the German. The road ran through a cutting then dipped steeply. The veteran New Zealand tankers halted knowing it was an obvious ambush point.

Lt Heptinstall tried to work his way around to flank the position using a promising looking narrow track. However, this ended at a farm house, and there was no means of travelling further. On the narrow confines of the track Lt Heptinstall got his tank turned around and returned to his troop. The infantry were still out of contact, however Lt Heptinstall had managed to re-establish contact with his regimental HQ, who said the infantry were ahead of him and under fire in need of help.
As he needed to advance Lt Heptinstall decided to take the road at full speed, with his other two tanks providing overwatch. At the bottom of the cutting there was a sharp left turn, and Lt Heptinstall intended to turn into it to get out of the suspected killzone.

His Sherman raced forward at full power. Just before he was due to make his turn the wall that lined the side of the cutting opened up to the gates of the Villa La Sfacciata, beside the old villa was a rather more modern shape, that of a Tiger tank. It fired, hitting the fast moving Sherman, killing the driver outright. The Sherman skidded off the road and the rest of the crew bailed out, into a hail of German machine gun fire. The only person not hit was Lt Heptinstall. 

Looking up from a ditch he found himself in, Lt Heptinstall could see the other two tanks of his troop advancing towards him, they had no idea what had happened, but were coming to investigate. Lt Heptinstall ran to the tanks to explain what had happened. The mad dash managed to halt the tanks before they blundered into the Tiger lying in ambush. Lt Heptinstall borrowed a Tommy Gun from the tank and returned to look for his crew.

As he approached he could see they were all dead, and then before he could close up German infantry on the hill side above him began to throw hand grenades at him. Lt Heptinstall was forced to retreat. On his way back, he was going much more cautiously and stumbled into a German machine gun nest, occupied by two Germans and their machine gun. Lt Heptinstall had walked past these men twice, and they hadn't opened fire, instead preferring to remain in their weapons pit in safety. Lt Heptinstall took both Germans prisoner, which they seemed willing to accept and returned to his troop. Meanwhile the rest of his tanks had been laying effective fire onto the German infantry who had tried to grenade Lt Heptinstall. The closest weapons pit was just ten yards away from the Sherman's, and a 75mm at that range was utterly devastating.

At this point a composite troop consisting of the Squadron HQ, some extra Shermans and a pair of M10's appeared, bringing much needed support. For the rest of the day both sides traded artillery, and a lot of it was aimed at the Tigers position. Later in the day the M10's were firing towards Point 199, when one was destroyed by return fire.

The next day the advance resumed and two burnt out Tigers were discovered. One had rolled down the hill whilst on fire, the one from the Villa La Sfacciata was now sitting next to the Sherman it had destroyed. It is likely that both tanks were destroyed by their own crews as they lacked the fuel to retreat (although one newspaper cutting says it tried to drive away from the position but was destroyed by fire from the Allies). With the two Tigers gone the Germans had lost the lynch pin of their defence and the fighting in the area ceased apart from the occasional skirmish.

Lt William 'Bill' Heptinstall was awarded the Military Cross for his actions.  Schwere Panzerabteilung 508 were the owners of the two Tigers, and their records say they lost a single man killed in action, likely from the artillery fire.

Photograph taken by George Kaye

Alexander Turnbull Library collection

Info source - http://overlord-wot.blogspot.com/2018/08/flamming-tiger_19.html

Colourised by Daniel Rarity

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pictures taken during the Battle for Hill 192 in Normandy - June/July 1944

Image
Pictures taken during the Battle for Hill 192 in Normandy - June/July 1944 Note that some of these pictures were taken in or near Saint-Georges-d'Elle Hill 192 was located between the cities of Saint-Lô and Bayeux in Normandy. The Battle was fought between elements of the 2nd US Infantry Division and the 16,000 strong 3rd German Fallschirmjäger (Parachute) Division, commanded by Generalleutnant Richard Schimf. Hill 192 gave the defending German forces good observation for miles in every direction. It needed to be taken in order for US General Omar Bradley to drive behind the German left flank and break out of Normandy; the attack that would become Operation Cobra. The terrain around Hill 192 also provided the German defenders excellent cover & concealment. US Lt. General Joseph Lawton Collins, found it worse country to fight in than Guadalcanal. The long battle among the Hedgerows finally culminated on July 10 when US forces captured Hill 192 and the surrounding area LIFE Magaz
Read more

This is the Legend of Anna Maria Stockhausen.👻

Image
This is the Legend of Anna Maria Stockhausen.👻 "This is Anna Maria Von Stockhausen’s corpse, strapped to keep her coming back from the dead. She was accused of being a witch during the Middle ages and Black Plague. This folklore about Anna was that she was killed about 6 times. She was first hanged and later clawed herself out of the grave. The town people captured her in a nearby town and quickly drowned her in a lake, by tying her to a plank. The townspeople said they checked her several times after dragging her lifeless body out of the water.  They buried her again, only to see an empty grave 2 days later! It was said they found her rotting corpse dwelling in her old place, with worms, dirt and water spitting out of her. So the townspeople dragged her out, drove a stake in her heart and once again buried.  They placed a guard at her grave and felt she was finally buried for good. The guard failed to check in for 4 days, so a local priest went to find him, it was said that he h
Read more

17-year-old British soldier Private Herbert Burden blindfolded and tied to a stake

Image
‘Shot at Dawn’  This memorial in Staffordshire is dedicated to the 306 British and commonwealth servicemen who were executed during the Great War. It portrays 17-year-old British soldier Private Herbert Burden blindfolded and tied to a stake, a disc pinned over his heart, waiting to be shot by a firing squad.  Burden, who falsified his age to enlist, had been Absent-without-Leave multiple times. When he left his post again, he was arrested and accused of desertion. Found guilty, a firing squad executed him two days later.  Eighty years on, grieved relatives petitioned the British government to correct these perceived injustices. In Burden’s case, research revealed that he had suffered under severe shelling, witnessed his friends killed battle, and had been sent to a military hospital. In response to the groundswell movement, British artist Andy DeComyn created the memorial in 2000 and gifted to the relatives of the executed soldiers.  The execution of confused and shell-shocked soldier
Read more

A watch discovered amidst the debris of Hiroshima

Image
A watch discovered amidst the debris of Hiroshima bore witness to the fateful moment of the atomic bomb's detonation on August 6th, 1945, precisely at 8:15 AM.  This tragic event occurred near the end of World War II when an American B-29 bomber unleashed a nuclear bomb upon the Japanese city, resulting in the immediate loss of approximately 80,000 lives.  Several days later, Nagasaki faced a similar fate as another nuclear bomb claimed the lives of 40,000 people.  The aftermath of these bombings led to the gradual demise of thousands more individuals due to the devastating effects of radiation.  Among the artifacts recovered from the ruins of Hiroshima were numerous timepieces, frozen forever at 8:15 AM, the precise moment when the city was forever altered by the destructive power of the nuclear bomb.
Read more

On May 11, 1943, 12,500 U.S. soldiers landed on the northern and southern ends of Attu Island. For over two weeks, battles raged over the tiny island.

Image
On May 11, 1943, 12,500 U.S. soldiers landed on the northern and southern ends of Attu Island. For over two weeks, battles raged over the tiny island.  There were few large-scale engagements; as in the rest of the Pacific Theater, the Japanese preferred to employ “small group” tactics, using the rough terrain of Attu to their advantage and lying motionless for hours in foxholes until they could pin down American units with sniper fire. As they moved across the island, Americans had to search every hollow to ensure against surprise attacks. On May 30, 1943, the United States recaptured Alaska's Attu Island from the Japanese Army. Only 28 of the roughly 1,400 Japanese who had been in the valley the day before survived. The rest had been killed in battle or had committed suicide by holding hand grenades to their chests.  When the Americans came across the Japanese hospital tents, they made the horrific discovery that their doctors had killed all of the wounded. The Americans buried 2,
Read more

‘Shell Shock’

Image
‘Shell Shock’ Captain John Harris was completely exhausted when he collapsed on 24 July 1916. At Pozières, his battalion had suffered under one of the heaviest bombardments of the war. Harris recalled seeing descending shells in their last 40 feet of flight. ‘The only thing to do was grin and bear it.’  Harris later collapsed and was evacuated from the front line. He had suffered severe shell shock. In 1917, Harris returned to his battalion, but his ‘nerves’ gave way again at Polygon Wood. When shells exploded close by, Harris fell to the ground, shaking uncontrollably.  A medical officer remembered Harris as suffering from tremor of the hands. He ‘only answered questions slowly and after some delay’. His commanding officer found him to be imbecilic; all he could say was that he was ‘feeling stupid’.  Harris had suffered shell shock for a second time. Upon returning to Australia Harris found it difficult to ease back into civilian life. His medical files indicate that he never sought t
Read more

A young German soldier (pictured center left, without helmet) refuses to participate in the execution of 16 Yugoslav civilians.

Image
A young German soldier (pictured center left, without helmet) refuses to participate in the execution of 16 Yugoslav civilians.  He positioned himself within the group and was executed for disobeying his NCO. He choose death instead of killing hopeless civilians. His name was Josef Schulz. Josef Schulz, also spelled Joseph Schultz (Serbian: Jozef Å ulc), was a German soldier of the 714th Infantry Division stationed in the Balkans, Serbia during World War II. He died in 1941, allegedly executed after refusing to take part in a partisan execution. The German High Command recorded him as killed in action. The plot of the Yugoslav short movie Joseph Schultz (1973) is based on the incident. Based on a Bundesarchiv study, the incident was dismissed as a legend by scholars in the 1990s. Josef Schulz was born in 1909[citation needed] and lived in Barmen, Wuppertal, Germany. During World War II, he served as a corporal in the 714th Infantry Division of the Wehrmacht. He is officially recorded as
Read more

Former Pampanga Governor and Congressman Jose B. Lingad became the first opposition politician killed during the martial law regime.

Image
HISTORY FOR YOU Former Pampanga Governor and Congressman Jose B. Lingad became the first opposition politician killed during the martial law regime. A World War II veteran, guerilla fighter and local politician, Lingad already had a taste of Pampanga politics before the war as a councilor in his hometown in Lubao, Pampanga..  With the inauguration of the Third Republic, he joined the Liberal Party under President Manuel Roxas  and ran for governor of Pampanga.  He became known as a fierce fighter against the Huks during the post-war Huk Rebellion.  (Some newspapermen considered him a warlord with the private army he had use to fight the rebels). Lingad's political career was derailed after he was implicated in the Maliwalu Massacre in 1951.  He was eventually cleared of responsibility of the killings but he lost in his bid for reelection.  He was appointed as an official in various government positions by his Lubao townmate, President Diosdado Macapagal before he ran again and won
Read more

Last weeks of 1942 were a turning point of WWII

Image
Last weeks of 1942 were a turning point of WWII. At Stalingrad, German 6th Army was already doomed, while the second battle of El Alamein and "Operation Torch" neutralized the Axis threat to North Africa, the Suez Canal and the Middle East. ➡ In November, New York saw the premiere of "Casablanca," set in the Vichy France colony of Morocco. One of the main characters in the movie was Victor Laszlo, member of Czech resistance fleeing from the Germans. Some people say he was modelled on a real person. ➡ If so, the similarities are not striking: the real guy was Polish, his name was SÅ‚owikowski, and he was not running from the Germans but came looking for them: in mid-1941 he arrived in North Africa from Britain to set up one of the most efficient espionage networks of the war.  ➡ "Agency Africa," based in Algiers behind a front of a cornflakes producer – the front being, by the way, profitable enough to finance a big part of the undercover operation – proved
Read more