DESTRUCTION OF TIGER TANKS

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24329, 7 August 1944, Page 4

DESTRUCTION OF TIGER TANKS

New Zealanders’ ; Success FIGHTING NEAR GALLUZZO - (Official War Correspondent N.Z.EJM FLORENCE, August 4. ; New Zealanders scored at.least fiv#. Tigers during the advance on Ffor«i ence. The two most recent victims-; "brewed up" on a hillside road not , four kilometres from the city. ' Our troops, moving forward toward*Galluzzo, after overcoming the pocket of resistance south-east ox tnß suburb, came upon a most dramatic, sight. Lying almost completely acrossthe road was the vast bulk of a Get*, man heavy tank, which was still snwk*. ing.' There was just room to manoeuvrea "jeep round the tail of the Tigers long 88 mm. gun, which still _P oi nx» out over the remains of its dwanea adversary, a Sherman tank. Scarcely 100 yards beyond Galluzzo lay another Tiger, blackened wim smoke about its turret, but still carry' ing its camouflage of olive branches; The debris was just part of what was left after the fall of the stronghold covering Galluzzo. The Sherman was one of a group of New Zealand tanks proceeding down the road after the retreat was resumed. At a point where the route turned round a shoulder of hill pclow a palace which had been the German headquarters, it was joined by a pain* Unknown to the New Zealanders, the Tiger was hidden in the narrow l<ffi» completely cut off. The first the No Zealanders knew of it was when i armour-piercing 88 mm. gun, weu a range of a few yards, sent a sneu crashing through the body of the aner man and out the opposite side. The flaming tank ran on only a iin ■ ■ distance and toppled over the The Germans machine-gunned men as they tried to abandon the Sher man. The New Zealand tf nk . mander was the only one to esc p < but then the Tiger commander naa another problem on his hands he revealed his position. When he tneu to escape past the Sherman, he W _ destroyed.