Crusader (A Novel of WWII Tank Warfare) by Jack Murray (important of reading books .TXT) 📗

The two boys agreed contact should be limited, at least early on.Why give their other crew members in the tank ammunition for raillery? Whyshould men be any different from what they were in a school, in the HitlerYouth or at training camp? Manfred wanted no special treatment as much becausehe wanted their respect as the fact that he enjoyed such banter. It was anoutlet. It was also a test. For the moment, Manfred wanted any examination ofhis fitness to share the tank to be based on his capability rather than on innuendo.

His arrival at Gambut coincided with a pause in the day-to-dayfighting. Germany had driven a wedge between the 9th Australiandivision at Tobruk and the rest of the Allies. The besieged garrison, however,was holding out from the regular attacks by the Axis forces. The occupation ofthe port of Tobruk was a massive thorn in the side of the Afrika Korps. Manfredwould soon be part of any assault. For now, though, they were at Halfaya, onthe border with Egypt.

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‘I’m bored,’ said Kastner. He looked up at the relentless sun andshielded his eyes.

‘Would you prefer to be out there?’ asked Overath, pointing acrossthe empty valley towards the enemy position before adding, ‘Wetting yourpants.’

 ‘Good point. Give me a cigarette,’ ordered the corporal to hissergeant. Manfred smiled and shook his head. He liked his two companions in thetank. There were few airs between them. They’d seen too much. Manfred knewbetter than to question them on what they’d done. Instead, he listened closelywhenever either chose to speak about their experience. These were rareoccasions and usually only when they were instructing the new recruit. The twoother members of the tank crew were relatively new. They had arrived threemonths earlier, just when the Allies had tried to relieve Tobruk.

The other two boys were a year or two older than Manfred. One wasnot very talkative, the other too much so. Initially, Manfred was drawn more toOverath and Kastner. He had more to learn from them. More than this, both menradiated self-assurance. This confidence was not based on mindless bravado.Their capabilities, their professional competence had already found expressionin the harshest of climates against a resolute enemy. Manfred recognised, as heworked alongside these men, how little he really knew about war.

Overath’s position as tank commander meant his position was in theturret of the tank. He took orders via his headphones from the head of the troop,Lieutenant Basler. The rest of the crew stayed below. Andreas Fischer was thedriver. Although not especially big, he seemed to fill the tank in other ways.He liked the sound of his opinions and he expressed them often. His enjoymentof these beliefs was in marked contrast to that of his unfortunate listeners.

Jens Kohler was as taciturn as Fischer was a blowhard. He was wiryand tireless. While Manfred did not especially take to him, he sensed that hewas not a man to lose his head under pressure. His greatest value to the teamwas his ability as a mechanic. The Panzer III was fairly reliable, but it stillrequired a good deal of maintenance. Kohler enjoyed the company of the enginemore than human company. Neither Overath nor Kastner seemed minded to changehis nature.

Kastner operated the gun. Direct tank on tank conflict was rare,yet Kastner would have had some experience of it. Manfred was desperate to knowmore but he sensed in the big Austrian a reluctance not only to discuss thisbut, somewhere behind his eyes, a sadness. Sometimes he would see a look passbetween the two men. It wasn’t doubt. They were here to do a job. One thatneeded to be finished quickly. But there was something there that Manfred knewhe would soon experience himself.

Kastner was clearly a man who merited his own tank. Manfredsuspected this was only a matter of time. He had leadership qualities inabundance. These would be needed as the war in the desert progressed and menwere lost. Manfred wondered how Overath would cope when that time came.

If he survived long enough.

Fischer was from Bavaria. He was never going to be mistaken foranything other than an Aryan. Movie star looks combined with an arrogance thatbordered on caricature, his own sense of destiny weighed heavily on theshoulders of his tank comrades. Manfred had never felt entirely comfortablearound such people. His own nature, while not particularly shy, was morereserved. Or, perhaps, he felt, as he often did with Erich, a sense ofresentment towards such confidence.

It was clear neither Overath nor Kastner liked Fischerparticularly. But, equally, they trusted him. Young men such as Fischer had alook in their eyes which was nothing to do with patriotic fervour andeverything to do with ambition.

Fischer saw himself as command material. However, to gain thepromotion that he craved required a combination of bravery, competence andsomething else. You needed a survival instinct. Overath and Kastner had all ofthese qualities, and in Fischer they recognised a similar spirit. Perhaps inManfred, too. But Manfred saw they were each amused by Fischer’s preening ego.They tolerated him because, in their early fire fights, he’d shown something tothem which was nothing to do with fearlessness, or cold-blooded killer instincts.

Quite simply, he could be relied upon.

This was the only type of acceptance Manfred sought now. To berecognised by such men as one of them. His status as Fahnenjunker meantnothing when sat with men who had engaged the enemy. Fischer was also a Fahnenjunker,and had graduated from the same academy as Manfred, four months earlier. Infact, they had just missed one another.

Manfred was expected to perform a number of roles in during thisperiod. To begin with he was trained up as the wireless operator. His role wasto coordinate what was happening with the other tanks in the unit. However,when they did eventually engage the enemy, it was likely he would be a loader.This position occupied the turret with Overath and Kastner.

More than anything now, he wanted the opportunity to test himselfin combat. The stigma of his reaction to Lothar’s death burned deep. His deathplayed out in the recurring dream. Only through battle