I seem to remember once reading that sometimes captured allied crews from flame throwing tanks were shot if captured by Germans. Has anyone else read or heard stories of this kind:confused:?
Yes I did in âThe universal tankâ by David Fletcher, however it give no further details.
Not sure on this.
Flame Thrower operators on the Eastern Front were routinely executed if caughtby both sides.
It is highly likely, however, that the Germans would do the same on the Western side. Main problem in this being how many crews were caught? Crocodiles tended to be well supported in the attack, and also had a nasty tendency to explode when hit.
This is interesting. So it was flame-thrower handlers in general, whether mechanised or infantry that were executed by the Germans? Was this weapon not allowed by the Geneva Convention, or was it that it was just such a terrible weapon?
I pity the guy given a flame-thrower to use, or the crews chosen to man the âcrocodilesâ. (as well as the guys who met it, of course)
The bloke that taught me to drive a car was a Crocodile dvr, (later an instr,) during the war.
He reckoned that it was just a âsquaddie tale,â and I guess heâd be one of those in the know.
Not really, they carried the fuel in a trailor towed behind the tank.
Yep, it was. There was a fuel line that came in to the body to fuel the projector. Via the tanks bum.
This was made of rubber and corded (like lots of wrapped string around the tube) to allow turret and weapon movement. This was very prone to damage when the tank was hit. What is worse some of the early models had no way of turning the supply of fuel off, except at the trailer.
If the hose was cut, highly flamable fuel would immediately spew forth in to the crew compartment. The crew would have to get out, avoiding any splashes and flames, in seconds.
This method was used because an early prototype system of fixed pipes and hinged joints, limited (severely) the movement of the projector and leaked a lot.
Flame Thrower operators have never been high on many peoples christmas card list. Executions certainly happened on the Russian Front. Not too sure about the Pacific, African or Western Theatres.
Were they even used in Africa?
Iâll read up on this when I get some spare time.
The Germans had a couple of Pz I flame thrower tanks in service with the Africa Korps for a while, but Iâve not any info on Allied velicles
I wonder how many flamethrowing tank crewman the Germans possibly could have captured. I canât imagine the number exceeded a few dozen, leading any speculation that even a small number of Croc tankers being executed would skew things and set some sort of false a presidence of numerous massacres. Iâm swilling to bet that a number of captured personnel assigned to use flame weapons survived the war after being capturedâŚ
Not really, they carried the fuel in a trailor towed behind the tank.
well, they could explode. in a book about the battles around the area where I live, there is reported that 2 crocs exploded while being refuelled in the trailors. a few soldiers died and the tanks turned over while the heavy blast.
jens
The fuel in the trailer was a nightmare from what I have read.
Without recourse to the info. I think there was 80 seconds (continous burst) worth of fuel in the trailer. It was excedingly flammable and reletively unstable, esp when pressureised.
The Croc was actually âun-flamedâ most of the time. Just before commiting to battle the crew would have to charge the trailer, to provide the neccesary pressure for operations.
Afterwards the pressure had to be relieved, as the trailer and connections were not as sealed as one would hope. This would result in fumes (oxidised fuel, which is worse than liquid state fuel) leaking through joints. The Croc would drive off to a safe distance, where the crew would carry out a depressurisation process.
IIRC the trailer going up, generally destroyed the Croc Tank. It was armoured though.
flamethrowers are always a quite dangerous thing even for the user. and they always attracted at once a lot of defensive-action since no one want`s to be burnt alive - they were definitly a primary target. I have also reports that quite a few crocs got lost through mines, which was the fate of many allied tanks.
in those situations where no anti-tank devices were availabe, mostly the defenders gave up very soon. there is an episode in that book what I mentioned before where a croc crew lit up an old 30 meter high oak near a building that was defended to demonstrate the defenders the effectiveness of their weapon. afterwards the germans all came out of the building and surrendered.
jens
I just adquired this book but unfortunately said nothing about this type of incidents with british flamethrowers.
For ANY Flame-Thrower crew, be it Armoured, or Infantry, death was a near certainty if captured.
The general principle seems to have been, Geneva Conventions or not, such troops were not to be permitted to survive, period.
From my reading, it seems the weapon itself was so fearsome that the operators âlostâ rights as pows due to being associated with the weapon.
Certainly, from an operational combat perspective if a flame-thrower team was seen it was targetted damn fast. Had any flamethrower team or crew been captured, execution was almost a certainty for all of the above reasons.
Regards, Uyraell.
Maybe, if captured directly by troops that had met the weapon. But I think that, if they were taken away, and interigated later, they might have been treated as regular POWâs if the Germanâs found out they were Croc crews.
Furthermore, only one Croc regiment was in action in NWE, 141 regiment, RAC. Chances of crews being captured are small, as they were only called upon to break trough German lines, in support of other unids, and they were not in the front line for a very long time, and only in an attacking phase of battle, atleast most of the time. Then, if they bailed out and were captured by Jerry, itâs only questionable if they knew the crew they captured were croc crew. As far as I know, they wore normal tank crew uniforms.
And then, if some crews were shot, so got other POWâs. I read ones, that 12 Canadian troops were shot by SS after captured. So if you read about a croc crew that got shot, it could be questionable if they were shot for being a croc crew, or for some other reason.
In the pacific, I think the Japâs would have killed an flame troghing crew if they got some, for the reason of flamming. But then again, Japâs executed POWâs on a more regular basis. They considdered POWâs as right less, so if they thought a POW comitted some kind of crime in their eyes, the POW would be executedâŚ
Cheers,
Joppe
sure have dude
The stories about Crocodile crews being executed started with Andrew Wilsonâs book âFlame Throwerâ. Published in 1956.
Wilson relates an incident where a Crocodile from his Unit broke down and was overun whilst the crew were trying to repair it. The crew were later found dead near the tank. It was concluded they had been lined up and shot.
If any of you have seen films of Japanese being hit with flamethrowers you will the see why most GIs, on all sides, would hate that weapon (at least from the receiving end.) So I can see some Germans, in the heat of battle, doing such. Just watch a few of your friends buring to a crisp and well, that might color your opinion.
We do know some snipers were also summarily shot when caught. In fact, Hitler decreed airmen caught with weapons, like a .45 Auto, would be shot to (granted this was later in the war and Hitler really really did hate losing.)
Deaf
Not recently seen footage of deaths by flamethrower, but saw a few images of deaths by napalm when I was much younger. As the results are very similar, then Iâd say âclose-enoughâ.
I think that seeing a few of your buddies cooked up would tend to make a soldier shoot a Flamethrower team on sight, or as willingly destroy a Flamethrower vehicle.
Certainly the Australians made great use of Flamethrower tanks against the Japanese in the Pacific. Usually, these were Matildas converted for the task, because their armour was in general sufficient against most Japanese antitank weapons.
Regards, Uyraell.