In 1945, Herman Van Gyseghem, a Flemish volunteer found himself in Hetzer 322 facing the Red Army’s advance on Berlin. His story of combat is toldby Jonathan Trigg
Necessity was the mother of invention in Nazi Germany’s Panzerwaffe [panzer arm] as the war dragged on and German industry struggled to manufacture the tanks the Wehrmacht needed.
Increasingly, the answer was the production of cheaper tank destroyers, often sporting proven anti-tank guns on obsolete panzer chassis. The Jagdpanzer 38 was a classic example of the type, marrying the 7.5cm Pak 39 L/48 in a Czech-designed Panzerkampfwagen 38(t) [the ‘t’ standing for tschechisch, the German word for Czech].
After seizing Czechoslovakia in the bloodless invasion of 1938, the Third Reich found itself in possession of one of the most advanced armament industries in the world, especially regarding armoured vehicles.
Of particular interest to the Germans was the CKD-produced LT vz. 38 light tank with its 3.7cm Skoda A7 gun. Several hundred were captured intact and hundreds more built, all used to equip a new raft of panzer divisions, so that by the advent of Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, some 760 of the attacking force’s th…
