01/06/08

Tiger number 332 is one of two tanks of Kampfgruppe Peiper still remaining today, the other being 213 in La Gleize, Belgium.  The tank is on display at the Patton Museum of Cavalry and Armor in Fort Knox, but it reached Kentucky through a circuitous path.  On Christmas morning 1944 SS-Unterscharführer Otto Blase in Tiger 332 was moving north along the N33 road through the small village of Coo-Biester, about five kilometers south of La Gleize.  He was probably trying to link up with Kampfgruppe Peiper, but how he had reached the area and why he was still moving toward La Gleize on 25 December remain a mystery.  At the same time, elements of the 740th Tank Battalion were moving south along the N33 after the capture of La Gleize.  Sergeant Glenn George in a Sherman encountered tank 332 parked on the side of the road.  George immediately directed his gunner to fire at the Tiger.  The American tankers had a white phosphorous shell loaded, and the smoke from this exploding shell apparently caused the German crew to think their vehicle was on fire.  To George’s surprise they opened their hatches and scrambled out of the Tiger.  George chased them off with machinegun fire and continued his advance.  (1)

On 26 December a unit of the US First Army’s 463rd Ordnance Evacuation Company found 332 on the side of the road and brought up a heavy tractor-trailer and other recovery vehicles.  They were able to get the tank to start but were unable to move it because the tracks were frozen to the ground.  The ordnance soldiers freed the tank by lighting gasoline fires beside the tracks, and drove 332 onto a secondary road that went from Coo-Biester through Ster toward Stavelot.  There they loaded the Tiger and set off for their eventual destination of Spa, where there was a railhead they intended to use to evacuate the captured tank out of the battle zone.  Sergeant Warnie Butler of the 463rd Ordnance Evacuation Company remembered after the war that the tank was such a heavy load that it caused some of the trailer tires to blow.  He also recalled that the cold and hungry crew of 332 came out of the woods and surrendered while he was helping to load the tank.  (2)  The heavy tank taxed the American recovery vehicles to the limit, and the trip was slow-going.  The crew spent the night of 26 December in Stavelot, and eventually reached the rail station at Spa on 28 December.  They unloaded 332 from their trailer and left it beside the railhead, first painting 463 ORD EVAC in large white letters on the left side of the turret below the German turret number.  The Americans had also painted DON’T BLOW EVACUATE on the glacis plate before the tank was recovered from Coo-Biester.  (3)

One of the initial photos of 332 taken by a soldier of the 463rd Ordnance Evacuation Company on 26 December 1944.  (Patton Museum of Cavalry and Armor)

The 463rd Ordnance Evacuation Company transported the Tiger to Spa on their heavy equipment trailer.  (Patton Museum of Cavalry and Armor)

The recovery team stopped for the night in Stavelot on 26 December 1944.  Their truck was named "Tank Taxi."  (Patton Museum of Cavalry and Armor)

Technical Sergeant Bob Roberts of the First Army's 45th Evacuation Hospital poses with 332 at the Spa railhead, early 1945.  The O.T.I.T. had not yet marked the tank, although the DON'T BLOW EVACUATE marking on the glacis plate is visible.  (Robert Roberts)

The US Army Ordnance headquarters at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland contained the Foreign Military Branch in the Ordnance Technical Intelligence section.  That branch trained and dispatched Ordnance Technical Inspection Teams (O.T.I.T.) for the purpose of recovering captured material and returning it to APG for in-depth evaluation.  The O.T.I.T. teams usually consisted of an officer and a couple of NCOs.  By early 1945 Colonel G. B. Jarrett, Chief of the Foreign Military Branch (and later curator of the Ordnance Museum at APG) had formed several O.T.I.T. to return captured German equipment.  (4)

O.T.I.T. 1 was assigned to the US First Army.  In February 1945 they found tank 332 still at the railhead in Spa where the 463^rd Ordnance Evacuation soldiers had left it.  The team marked the tank and had it transported to Antwerp, from where it eventually reached APG in the summer of 1945. (5)

This photo apparently shows 332 being prepared for transportation by the Ordnance Technical Inspection Team, probably at Spa.  The O.T.I.T.-1 and cross-in-circle markings are now on the tank.  (This photo has been published before but I have been unable to find the original source.  A search in the National Archives failed to find this photo.  To my knowledge it was first published in The Tiger Tanks by Heinz J. Nowarra, Uwe Feist and Edward T. Maloney, Aero Publishers, Inc., 1966.)

332 arrived at APG by rail from the port where it had entered the United States.  Fortunately a member of the Ordnance Center took some color 8mm film of the tank on the railcar.  The tank was still in running order, and was driven in tests at APG.  When study was complete, probably in the late 1940s, the tank was transferred to the Ordnance Museum. 

The Ordnance Museum cut away sections of the tank’s armor, including the entire left side of the turret and a part of the upper hull on the left side.  While this action no doubt improved the display qualities of the tank, it unfortunately destroyed evidence of the tank’s original paint for future researchers.  The museum kept the tank displayed inside for some time, but at some date in the 1950s or 1960s 332 was moved outside.  APG welded thin sheet metal over the cut-away areas to keep out the effects of weather, and initially simply painted the added metal in red primer.  Later the tank was repainted in a number of inaccurate camouflage schemes and colors, but it retained its proper turret number.

In 1990 the Patton Museum of Cavalry and Armor reached an agreement with the Ordnance Museum to transfer 332 to the Patton Museum in exchange for an American MBT-70 prototype tank.  The Tiger arrived at Fort Knox in August 1991.  It was taken to the Boatwright maintenance facility where the turret was removed and the tank was studied by the museum staff.  The maintenance facility removed the thin sheet metal covers from the cut-away areas and applied a reproduction camouflage paint scheme under direction of the Patton Museum staff.  The tank was towed to the Patton Museum and displayed in April 1992.

The Paint and Markings of 332

The camouflage paint and markings of 332 have been the subject of controversy for a number of years.  German tank turret numbers in 1943-45 are often assumed to have been red outlined with white, based on wartime color photos, captured tanks, and veterans’ accounts.  332 did not follow this pattern.  As early as the 1970s researchers mentioned that 332 had blue and yellow turret numbers.  The first reference in print I can find is a “Color ‘n Camouflage” article in “AFV-G2” magazine in December 1974.  The author describes a photo of tank 312 of s. SS-Pz.Abt. 501 taken in the Ardennes and gives the turret numbers as medium blue with a thin yellow outline.  The article alludes to 332, stating "... another tank from this same 3. Kompanie is now on display at Aberdeen Proving Ground.  Color photos, taken shortly after the vehicle's arrival at the Proving Ground verify the colors of the turret identification numbers..."  (6)  An article in the May 1975 edition of "AFV News" magazine describes 332's turret numbers: "The tank number 332 is in a 'block' style.  Also unusual are the colors used for the numbers, a medium blue over yellow outline, and Col. Jarrett has always maintained that this is the way it arrived."  (7) (Col. Jarrett, now deceased, was the APG Museum curator at the time.)

The magazine authors were apparently referring to a short (approximately 15 seconds) segment of color 8mm movie film taken when 332 arrived at APG in the summer of 1945, as described above.  The film shows the front of 332 on the railcar, a close-up of the glacis plate with the DON'T BLOW EVACUATE and O.T.I.T.-1 markings, and the left turret side with the turret number and the O.T.I.T.-1 and 463 ORD EVAC markings.  Visual color interpretations of this film aren't as easy as it might seem.  The remaining copies of the film are VHS videotapes made from the 8mm original, which is apparently now lost.  (8) The sun was shining when the film was taken, and that coupled with the age of the film makes the shades very light in the surviving copies.  In the view of the left turret side, it's clear that the 332 numbers are medium blue.  In these views the outline appears to be white, but it appears to be the same color and shade as the O.T.I.T.-1 and 463 ORD EVAC markings.  The O.T.I.T.-1 marking on the glacis plate is clearly seen to be yellow in the film, so if the O.T.I.T.-1 marking on the turret side was also yellow, then the outline of 332 appears to be yellow as well.  Here, published for the first time on the Internet, is the color film taken of 332 when it arrived at APG.  (9)

332 also had a series of unusual cross-in-circle markings when it arrived at APG.  These markings – a white cross on a round yellow or faded orange background approximately three inches in diameter – were painted on the glacis plate, on both sides of the hull, and on the rear plate.  Some early sources speculated that this was a stylized version of the tactical marking of Heer s. Pz.Abt. 506, which also participated in the Ardennes Offensive (though not in the area of Kampfgruppe Peiper).  Even the Patton Museum initially made this mistake in 1991, and identified 332 as having belonged to s. Pz.Abt. 506.  However, the cross-in-circle cannot be a German tactical marking.  The initial photographs taken by soldiers of the 463^rd Ordnance Evacuation Company while they were recovering 332 in December 1944, and photos taken by other soldiers while the tank was at the Spa railhead, show no sign of the markings.  They first appear in photographs after the Ordnance Technical Inspection Team had prepared the tank for transport to Antwerp, along with the O.T.I.T.-1 markings.  In recent years there has been speculation that the O.T.I.T. added the markings to indicate balance points on the tank.  The theory was that the markings showed center of gravity locations where the tank would pivot and start downward while being loaded onto a flatcar.  This theory seems to have originated in a 1994 article in “AFV News” magazine. (10) This is probably not the correct explanation for the markings.  The markings on glacis and rear plate weren’t near the center line of the vehicle, and those on the left and right hull sides were at different distances from the front of the tank.  That they were applied by the O.T.I.T. or another US Army element seems certain, but the true purpose remains unknown.

To add to the confusion, the pattern of 332’s camouflage paint was substantially different from the schemes seen on most of the other s. SS-Pz.Abt. 501 Tigers in the Ardennes.  The photos taken by US soldiers before the tank left Belgium in 1945 clearly show that it lacked the paint dots of the “light and shadow” scheme, and the paint was applied in a different pattern.  The camouflage paint was apparently applied by spray, since it does not show the typical “hard” edges seen in photographs of tanks with the “light and shadow” scheme.  The pattern on 332 may have differed from other s. SS-Pz.Abt. 501 tanks because it was built earlier than most of the others.  The chassis serial number of this tank is 280243, indicating that it was built in September 1944.  It was one of the 11 tanks originally issued to Army s. PzAbt. 509 and redirected to s. SS-Pz.Abt. 501 in early December 1944.

Several color photos taken at Aberdeen after the war have been assumed to show the tank in its original paint.  In reality the Ordnance Museum had repainted the tank before any of these photos were taken.  A color photo of the tank inside the Ordnance Museum has been said to show the original paint in the 1940s. 

332 on display at APG after its first repaint, c. 1951.  (This photo has been shown on several Internet sites, but I do not know the original source.)

While original photos of the right side of the tank showing the paint pattern are rare, a comparison of the existing photos shows that the pattern on the color photo in question differs slightly from the wartime photos, especially on the mudguards.  In addition, the cross-in-circle marking is in a different position on the inside photograph: farther forward and higher on the right hull side.  While it was a remarkably good job, it is clear that the Ordnance Museum had repainted the tank before the time of this photo.  The framed tank photo on the wall behind 332 provides a clue to the photo’s date.  The tank is a US M41 “Walker Bulldog,” which didn’t enter full production until mid-1951, and the photo was probably taken after 1951.

The Ordnance Museum repainted 332 at least three more times.  A series of photos taken outside in the early 1970s shows a paint scheme similar to the inside view above, but with the addition of stripes of a sand tan or cream color.  Note the light stripe running through the first 3 of the turret number in the view below; this photo was taken in 1972.

332 at APG in 1972. (Geoff Walden)

The tank was finally painted a shade of light gray overall, and this was the condition in which it arrived at Fort Knox in 1991.

332 after arrival at Fort Knox in 1991. (author's photo)

During the cosmetic restoration of 332 to ready it for display at Fort Knox, the staff of the Patton Museum intended to match the original paint hues and pattern as closely as possible.  But the result must be taken as only a conjecture of what the original paint may have been.  The staff was working with the remains of at least four post-war repaints, during any of which all of the original exterior paint may have been removed.  The staff reportedly matched the olive green paint they used from paint remaining on the metal rain gutter originally welded above the mantlet; this was found inside the tank and apparently had not been mounted outside while at APG.  The red-brown was taken from samples of original paint from the StuG III and the SdKfz 251/9 in the museum’s collection.  The exterior color representing the dark yellow paint was taken from the apparently original paint found on the inside of the turret.  (11) This was probably an error on the part of the Patton Museum – the turret interior color should have been Elfenbein (ivory) in semi-gloss, and that’s how it appeared when the tank arrived in 1991.  The Patton Museum applied this color in semi-gloss to the outside of the tank, which is most likely an inaccurate rendition of the original paint color.

332 being towed from the Boatwright maintenance facility to the Patton Museum in April 1992.  The paint restoration was not finished yet; the blue inner portions of the turret numbers had not been painted.  (author's photos)

332 on display in the Patton Museum.  At my last viewing in 2005 the crew still wore Heer panzer uniforms, in keeping with the museum's initial misidentification of 332 as a s. Pz.Abt. 506 tank.  (author's photos)

Notes:

(1) Glenn D. George, telephone interview by Harry Miller, tape recording, 1993.  It must be noted that the German sources consulted by Patrick Agte state that 332 had broken down by the time the 740^th Tank Battalion passed through Coo-Biester on 25 December, but the tank was in running condition when it was recovered on 26 December.

(2) James Butler and Paul Butler, emails to author December 2007, regarding their father, Sergeant Warnie Butler.

(3) The details of the recovery of 332 are from Charles R. Lemons, “America’s King Tiger,” Wheels & Tracks 49 (October 1994): 37-40; and an interview with Mr. Lemons by the author, 5 April 2000.

(4)  Charles H. Yust, Jr., letter to Geoffrey Walden, 18 August 1986 (Charles Yust was assigned to the Ordnance Center Foreign Material Branch in 1944-45.)

(5)  Lemons, op. cit., pp. 37-39.  Mr. Lemons says that the O.T.I.T. loaded 332 onto a captured heavy tank transporter and transported it to Antwerp, though I have been unable to find period verification of the method used by the team to get the tank to Antwerp.

(6)  James Steuard, “Color ‘n Camouflage: German Panzerkampfwagen VI. Tiger II. Heavy Tanks.”  AFV-G2 Vol. 5 No. 1, page 33.

(7)  Joe Mulligan, “The Tiger II Tanks at APG and Munster.”  AFV News Vol. 10 No. 3 (May 1975), page 6.

(8)  Charles Lemons, Patton Museum of Cavalry and Armor, email to author 10 April 1998; Dr. William Atwater, US Army Ordnance Museum, telephone conversation with author 9 August 2005.  Dr. Atwater stated that there are no copies of this film or any records pertaining to 332’s paint at the Ordnance Museum.

(9)  Death of a Panther, produced by Fort Knox Television, 30 minutes.  Includes color and black and white film taken at APG c. August 1944 through c. August 1945 transferred to videocassette.  Film Archives of the Patton Museum of Cavalry and Armor, Fort Knox.

(10)  Bruce Culver, “APG Tiger II Circle Cross Solution.”  AFV News Vol. 29 No. 1 (January-April 1994), page 17.

(11)  Charles Lemons, Patton Museum of Cavalry and Armor, email to author 10 April 1998 and internet forum post 27 October 1999.

All text copyright 2005-2008 Gregory A. Walden. All rights reserved; material from this website may only be republished with the author’s permission.