P51D

Brian Re-read my intial posts regarding the circumstances of the original paper. To repeat agian. It wasn't at a public presentation. And who mentioned Al-Quieda. But i don't care anyway. And to repeat yet again. I don't care if it seems a cop out. I can't be bothered.

Actually, joking & the flying sherman aside, that isn't so daft an idea. Ekins hits & wipes out Wittman from the side. Impact high up towards the top of the hull where the later internal hull explosion obliterates the strike evidence. Tyffies later spot the Tigers in the open & as there is no smoke & fire to indicate they out of action attack & hit with rockets that cause the explosion. An APDS hit will not necessarliy cause fire & explosion. Interesting hypothesis. Ed

It was Colonel Mustard flying a winged Sherman Firefly Calliope hybrid at 2000ft above the Parlour & holding the lead pipe. He hit Wittman with one 17pounder APDS shot at 40000yds then blew the rest of him to pieces with all his 60lb rockets at a range of 2 feet. Ed

I would like to thank Tarqulene for his post above which in essence sums up my feelings regarding the way this thread had degenerated while i had been unable to post being at home & asleep. Thank you Tarqulene. I refuse to correspond with anyone who insinuates, accuses or alleges any misconduct on my behalf from a few lines of text & whom i have never met or know. I have ,as Tarqulene put it, 'better things to do with my time'. I am used to discussions on a professional basis with fellow professionals who understand how to rationally discuss/analyse theories or arguements. I, nor any of my collegues, have ever claimed to be infallible on any aspect of history. My casual post, astutley recognised by Tarqulene as such, was made because i saw the topic whilst searching scenario info & recognised the fact that maybe some people weren't aware of the situation regarding the Wittman scenario. Without wanting to sound blase' it is an 'old' subject. As i said previously i was researching him 5+ years ago & a lot of water has passed under the bridge. I post regularly on various boards (& am a moderator on 1) around the net, including games/sim boards, history boards & the comments made to a new member would not be tolerated om most of them. I never, ever, use my real identity on the net. I will never provide a personal e-mail address or provide details of the company i run. Our Clients include government agencies & institutes who demand & are given complete anonymity when they request it. The protection of my identity & therefore the security of myself, family & staff is of paramount importance especially during the current global climate. Tarqulene also stated: He left either because: a) He's a fake. or He thinks the forum is a shark tank, dominated by an established clique hostile to newcomers, and has other things he'd rather do in his free time. B is correct. I have joined other forums b4, such as SimHQ & discovered the same so my attitude is 'why should i bother'. I have better things to do. Maybe this forum is different, i hope so as i thoroughly enjoy CMBO as a game. I have never posted here with the intention of upsetting anyone & neither did i post anything of a vindictive nature aimed at anyone. I was merely attempting to help some people. Now i can't really be bothered. I fail to understand how 'tone' can be interpreted from the typed word. I do not read anything & perceive a condescending tone as i am not listening to the tone of someones voice or witnessing their body language. Now, we come to the alleged publication of my paper. I am in my late 30's & since i began in this profession i have published 48 papers, theses, diseratations, reports. Only 5 of them have been summated into the mainstream media. The rest have appeared in complete or more commonly in abrdidged form in: Janes: Defence Weekly, Intel Review, NATO Defence Forum, ISS Forum, Intel Digest & The Sandhurst Gazette. None of which, to my knowledge, are published in the public domain. They have covered topics ranging from the use of animals in the trenches during the Somme to the use of Hannibals tactics during the Gulf War. A 'paper' can differ in size from 2 pages of typed A4 to 500 pages of professionally printed & hardback bound book. The paper i referred to contains 1 chapter specific to his demise whilst the other 5 chapters dealt with the SS Heavy Tank Battalions in Normandy. It appeared in an abridged version in the NATO Forum in the late 90's. More specific than that i will not be. I think a degree of misunderstanding exists about the role of a military historian. Our profession provides data to whoever requests it for numerous reasons but generally to understand & predict future conflicts & wars, not solely to pick over the bones of old battles. I would estimate that only 20% of my Client base is academic based for the 'what if' scenarios. I have posted today to thank Tarqulene for understanding my feelings on this & to pick up on the points he picked out & quoted on. This does not alter my attitude to the references requested. I don't particularly care. I not interested in entering into another slanging match regarding Wittman & the candlestick in the parlour. At the end of the day what does it matter. And finally we come to my maturity or lack thereof that someone questioned. As i said i am inmy late 30's. My staff range in ages from 17 yr old secterial student to a retired Lt Col in his early 60's. Our staff room has a snooker table, table football, TV, DVD & video. We will watch & laugh at: Simpsons, Frasier, ER, Manchild, The Clangers, The Wombles, Tom & Jerry (my fav!!) & we all love Bagpuss. We are practically closing the place down for the World Cup because we love football & we also have our own football team. No we are not a bunch of crusty old goats in smoking jackets & slippers. We are young(ish) guys & gals who enjoy some fun & lots of booze, regularly. But we all work hard & enjoy what we do. Regards Ed Thats all folks!!

Unfair? Unfair is being called a liar by someone whom i have never met or knows me. I have neither the time nor inclination to provide information to anyone who decides to personaly insult me. We were having a reasonable discussion & i have some of the documentation refs to immediate hand after searching for them at home last night. In light of the post attacking me before i had responded to the request for info, which i fully intended to provide as i indicated i would when i got home last night, i am not prepeared to discuss the issue further. As far as i am concerned this matter is closed. Thank you Ed

Considering the tone that this thread has taken, especially being accused of being a liar, this is my final post. Things have become somewhat vitriolic since the level headed discussion that began yesterday. I understood that personal attacks in the forums were forbidden. Therefore i have no further no comments to make on this subject. To the guys who i originally corresponded with yesterday on the 1st page of this post, thanks guys & good luck. Ed

No mystery exists. The published account is, as i said, contained within the After the Battle publication Panzers in Normandy. If the book was originally published in 1983 as john says then at the time the related magazine series of the same name contains a nore detailed breakdown of the research. This i know because i used the magazine as an intial point of reference for the Tiger in Normandy that formed the main part of my paper. I was looking at back copies of the magazine in late 97 or 98. It was after i read the book that i became aware of Wittmans discovery. This lead me to more copies of the mag pertaining to the discovery. I do not know the dates of the mags as it was 5 years ago as i said. I have been involved in much more in depth research on other topics since then so u will excuse me if my memory regarding issue numbers is non-existent. The book also contains the photos illustrating the damage to 007 & shows the photo of wittmans grave. As i said previously i do not know if the discovery of his remains was only included in the updated late 90's version of the book or was in the 1983 version. If it was 83 then AtB mag of that time contains more in depth info. If it was sometime mind 90's then correspondingly AtB contains same. My paper was not unpublished. It was published in the journals that we use everyday to keep in touch with research projects around the world in much the same way that medical journals are produced to inform those in the medical profession of health related news. Much of which is of little or no relevance or importance to the general public. It is not my fault that most of these type of journals are not available to the general public especially as it was 5 years ago. To historians they are the lifeblood of our profession. We need them to keep in touch with what is happening on the other side of the world in our profession. They are where important findings or theories are published. It should be noted that most of the publications listed of a first person narrative nature are in escence, non-fiction novels & as such are not subject to stringent research required by the profession. In short anyone can print/publish what they want & it be taken as the truth. The confusion about Wittman stems all the way back to 1944 & the announcement by SS HQ that he had been KIA. I originally responded to the request regarding Wittman because of the incorrect facts highlighted by authors that i knew to be wrong. I knew they were wrong because as professionals we know they are wrong. That is why my company is in existence. We cannot deal with facts that are incorrect because we would be unemployed. It is also why we are employed by academic bodies, government depts, institutes etc to give lectures & reports etc on WW2. Ed

thanks for the refs on the Then & Now publication john. Saves me some work later. I have an updated version of the book that i purchased in 97/98 although whether the update included the discovery of Wittman i don't know. I am suprised at the dates of Ken's works. I thought they were earlier as it seems years ago when i read them. With regard to the publication of incorrect info after the discovery i can only attribute this to lack of research & complying with the skectchy info available prior to the discovery of the remains. I am at a loss to analyse why these theories of the canucks or the yeomanry persisted after the discovery & subsequent invetsigation. After all the find was well known and discussed feverently in the military history cicles. As i said previously in the professional historical 'family' the question of his death are solved & not worthy of debate. The photographic evidence alone is irrefutable with regard to a rocket strike & during the investigation the flight logs were discovered belonging to the Tyffie squadron who conducted the attack. Again my memory is hazy on exact details due to the time since i was last researching Wittman data. The flight logs indicated an attack on Tigers in the open & the location is exactly that of the discovery of the bodies. There were 3 bodies discovered in a shallow grave by the side of a road. As i said my paper was not published was not in the public domain but was presented at a forum in Sweden some years ago attended by military personnel & historians. I do not know if After the Battle mag is still available & i never saw the article. I remmeber being informed of the summation but never got to see it. Regards Ed

Andreas. No offence taken at all. Just thought i would post seeing as it is one of my 'subjects' & i could see the usual mistakes being made regarding wittman. No fault of the writers. Just confusion due to the conflicting evidence around prior to the discovery of his remains. It is a pity that nothing much has been publishes since the discovery especially since the 50th anniversary of the landings. I will check my dates when i am home to see when the book was published, discovered etc. No my paper is not online. It was a few years ago & anyway wasn't intended for publication in the general public domain although i believe After the Battle magazine summarised it in an article some months later. Regards Ed

I am, by profession, a military historian with my own company & we (25-30 strong doctorate & professorship faculty) lecture on WW2 topics all over Europe & the US to Military Colleges, Academies, think tanks, government agencies etc. The death of Wittman has been resolved in our circles, because of the level of research undertaken during & since the discovery of his body. Expert analysis of the photographs has shown the location of the rocket strike & further concluded that wittman & his crew were incinerated due to the engine fire exploding into the crew compartment through the firewall. Indeed Wittmans skeletal remains showed the lower body (legs, lower abdomen) fused by the intense heat whilst his upper body & head were (skeletally) unscathed. It was concluded that the rocket impact exploded the fuel tanks instantly causing a massive influx of heat through the destroyed firewall into the crew compartment. I completed a paper on his death a few years ago that was reviewed & commended at a conference in Stockholm. Regards Ed

Wittman was not killed by tank fire by either the canucks or the yeomanry. He was killed by Tyffies. His body was discovered in the early 90's during the research for the After the Battle series of books entitled Panzers in Normandy Then & Now. I have all data at home somewhere. His grave is in Normandy. Have visited. Photos are available of his Tiger with the turret heavily damaged & the engine deck destroyed from a large penetration of the compartment. Definetly not an AP hit. It was all meticulously researched & his dental records matched. All material published since the discovery & publication has acknowledged this. Ken's books were written some time ago. Ed