[PanzerBob]

Continued from War Diary, SSKG Griffin 19 Oct 1945,

The day’s events played out almost as anticipated and with minimal casualties. The northern objectives were held with little effort against the remaining infantry. As a result the Jaguars committed there were able to swing south and eliminate an attempt to reinforce with several platoons of Firefly’s. The western main road was taken and held at the cost of one Cheetah. one Panther (Recce) and a Rommel plus some of my boys were caught in several half-hearted barrages. The rest of the enemies attacking armour (Mostly Firefly’s) were caught at long range as they tried to manoeuvre on to the road from the south. This turned out to be the Canadians major effort here. Its destruction ended this engagement.

Of note on this day, we experimented with combat rearming of the Hubz; two aircraft were successful and returned on station after about 25 minutes. They were ready as the battle ended but this may prove useful in longer engagements or in a interdiction role. One other Hubz suffered minor damage from ground fire.

The Canadians seemed to have adopted the 17pdr gun now, as it’s main gun on all armour. As well a tank with 4 x 20mm guns was fielded, two were knocked out and at this time are being deployed to the rear and not with the main attacking body where they may have given my Hubz crews a hard time.

Making the KG for the attack on the Suez Canal was now our focus. Our orders had us hitting the Suez north of ISMAILIA with capturing two bridges, a pontoon (difficult) and a rail bridge as the primary objectives. The attack at this time was supposed to be in 3 days. Attached are the initial plans, however the final plan would hinge on what our recce flights and Special Forces bring back on the defences there.


Obersturmbannführer PanzerBob