When You're Out of Pinapples.... Throw an Apple!

[kverdon]

Thought we could use some brevity here,

I'm reading Don Burgett's "Road to Arnhem" and he relates the following story:

A trooper in Zon by the name of "Slick" gets caught in the middle of a firefight between group of German infantry, a German Panther and his 101st buddies. The Panther gets hit with a 57mm round which does no apparent damage and the Panther TC pops up to see where the shot came from. As he pops us he see's Slick close by and drops back down his hatch. Seeing an oppertunity to knock out the tank, Slick jumps up and tosses a grenade down the TC's hatch. The Panther crews bails out upon seeing the grenade just as its hit by two more 57mm rounds. Slick dives under the Panther to avoid the small arms fire of the supporting German Inf. Slick reaches for another grenade only to realize that all he's got left is one of the numerous apples that the gratefull Dutch had tossed to their para liberators. Using exagerated motions, Slick sits up from under the tank, pulls the stem on the apple and tosses it at his German tormenters. The Germans, thinking that the incoming object was a grenade hit the dirt while Slick hightails it for the American lines. Wonderful imagery with this:

Shultz: ACHTUNG GRENADE!!!!!! (or whatever grenade is in German..)

Fritz: Nicht Grenade, ist ein Gravenstein!!!

Kevin

[tss]

kverdon wrote:

Using exagerated motions, Slick sits up from under the tank, pulls the stem on the apple and tosses it at his German tormenters.

I've posted this before, but a company (or was it a batallion) commander of SS Division Wiking once scared a Soviet tank away with a Cognac bottle. The tank had broken through German lines and surprised the captain who was driving to the lines in his Kübelwagen. He grabbed the nearest thing that that happened to be a Cognac bottle and threw it at the tank hitting it. The tank commander apparently thought it was a Molotov coctail that had failed to ignite and reversed away.

Of course, the captain should have been tried as a war criminal for wasting good stuff like that.

- Tommi