WW2 Veterans?

[Sublime]

You should.come by more often Rank. You know I live in town always welcome to have a beer on me or smoke a bone man. Talk history. Anyways glad to here Worcesters getting better that place used to be a nightmare. Like Lowell and Fall River and New Bedford it was like four neighborhoods of Boston so bad they were forever exiled in each direction of the compass to the furthest reaches of the commonwealth...

[hank24]

During the last few days I had an interesting encounter at a geriatric department of a hospital at Braunschweig, Germany. I met an old man who told me that he joined the Wehrmacht in 1943 with the 12th InfDiv but soon came to some panzer unit where he was the driver of a Mk IV tank at the eastern front. This tank was destroyed with no loss to the crew and just days afterwards they received a King Tiger. He drove this during the successful opening of some cut-off parts of other units in East Prussia. He mentioned the cities Heiligenbeil and Elbing. Some time later, his tank was fatally hit, commander dead, all others jumped out. But then the next projectile hit the tank and he caught three splinters. Came to a Hospital at Thale at the Harz mountains, went to US captivity and to French captivity later.

His unit was the 3/42. Unfortunately no further Information, maybe 3. company of some Regiment 42. I tried to find something like that, but no succes (e.g. www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de). Anybody any idea?

In addition, he talked of a 'T10 tank' with a 105 mm gun. I asked if he means something like the Wespe, i.e. an artillery piece, but he insisted it had a rotating turret. Some kind of development tank? Panzer VII Löwe (Lion, according to Wikipedia, it never left the drawing board)?

I think, if this is true, it is really a rare occurance to meet somebody alive today who drove one of the 492 King Tigers of the Wehrmacht. Unfortunately, I was unable to spend more time with him and some of his memorys were feint.