http://www.anicursor.com/colpicwar2.html

Best just go to the site and read the entire thing. In short, troops are moving through Cologne, there is a Panzer everyone thinks is dead in front of the cathedral but turns out it is not. Shoots a Sherman, and then another Sherman kills it.

Some amazing pictures, even the newsmen must have thought it was safe as there were obviously several different cameras there.

Here is an amazing picture:



Showing the tank burning, and those holes are shell holes going through to the inside of the tank.



View from the cathedral onto the combat place:
1 - the destroyed german tank in front of the cathedral
2 - the destroyed US tank was located here
3 - in this road there was the US tank, which destroyed the german tank

The thing that strikes me most about this pic is it shows how devastated Cologne was after the 1000 bomber raid. You always see the facades of these buildings, but I hadn't ever seen the insides of the absolutely gutted buildings before.

I suspect no one will ever know, but I bet this tank crew came from Cologne and lost their families, and decided to die there too.

Yep the Panther comander mistakenly thought that the M26 Pershing had to stop to fire not knowing that the pershing had a gyro system that allowed it to fire acurately while on the move! End of story. Lucky for the m26 that the Panther didn't get the first shot because the 75MM HV AP round would have gone clean though end to end at that distance which is exactly what happened to several Pershings from this same goupe a couple of weeks after this encounter not far from Colone. By the way two of that panthers crew got out & the others were killed.

My father had completed his required number missions and was given the choice of returning stateside or if he wanted to make a career of the Air Corp/Air Force he could stay.
He was assigned to being a bombing assessment officer.
He was in Cologn shortly after it fell to the US troops. He picked up a Mauser from the front steps of the cathedral and eventually sent it home to his father.
I have it in my gun safe now.
It's been sporterized, cut the fore stock back, by my grandfather, who used it for deer hunting.
Jim