In December 1944, the Germans planned a major counter-offensive in the Ardennes region of Belgium; part of the planned offensive was operation Greif. Operation Greif’s goal was to capture the bridges over the river Meuse by utilising German forces equipped with American armoured vehicles in order to get in amongst the Allied defenders and cause confusion. The unit assembled for this task was called Panzer Brigade 150; it was made up of 3,300 men and composed of 500 Waffen SS, 800 Luftwaffe ground unit personnel, with the remainder from the Wehrmacht.
Panzer Brigade 150 was under the overall command of Otto Skorzeny (June 12, 1908 – July 6, 1975). He served with the SS throughout the war, but did not see active service until the invasion of Russia (Operation Barbarossa) where he was with the 2nd Waffen SS division Das Reich. He was awarded the Iron Cross late in 1941 after receiving a head wound, and refusing evacuation to continue fighting with his unit. Skorzeny came to prominence on September 12, 1943 when he with 108 troops successfully rescued Mussolini without a shot being fired during Operation Oak. For this action Skorzeny was made a Major and awarded the Knights Cross.
Panzer Brigade 150 was made up of three Kampfgruppen called X, Y, and Z (“combat formations,” a loose term that could be applied to many kinds of ad hoc units, often abbreviated KG). Each Kampfgruppe consisted of an HQ, three infantry companies, two Panzer Grenadier companies, two tank-destroyer platoons, two mortar platoons, a platoon of combat engineers, a platoon of signal personnel, and a company of repair personnel. The plan to equip the units with captured American armoured vehicles was quickly found to be impossible, as only two Sherman’s were available and combat ready. It was then decided to equip Kampfgruppe X with five Panther G’s, and Kampfgruppe Y with five Stug IIIs, This left Kampfgruppe Z as the weakest unit, having only trucks and armoured personnel carriers in reserve.
The five Panthers issued to Kampfgruppe X were made to look like M10 tank destroyers by welding sheet metal onto their fronts, sides, and rears; this gave the Panthers the general appearance of the Allied M10. This subterfuge was doomed to fail against anything but the freshest troops, as the vehicle was bigger, sounded different, and the resemblance was only general in appearance. The designation of four of these five Panthers is known; they were pennant numbers (vehicle designation) B4, B5, B7, and B10. I have been unable to locate the pennant number of the 5th Panther. It is worth mentioning here that two of the five Panthers had no circle around the stars on the turret (B7 and the unknown 5th Panther); B4, B5, and B10 did have the circles on the turret.
The Panthers of Kampfgruppe X were manned by men of the 6th Panzer Division’s 11th Panzer regiment, 1st Battalion, and were the under the command of SS Obersturmbannführer (Lt.Col.) Willi Hardieck. Hardieck died on the evening of the 17th of December in a field hospital after the jeep he was travelling in hit a German mine, the explosion having killed Hardieck’s driver and radio operator outright. Hardieck was replaced by SS Hauptsturmführer (Captain) Adrian von Foelkersam. The Stug IIIs of Kampfgruppe Y were manned by men of the 1st Company, 655th Heavy Tank Destroyers Battalion under the command of Hauptmann (Capt.) Scherif. The reserve force of Kampfgruppe Z was only equipped with trucks and armoured personnel carriers under the command of Oberstleutnant (Lieutenant Colonel) Wolf.
Panzer Brigade 150 went into action on the morning of the 21st of December 1944, with the plan to capture the bridges over the river Meuse having now become a secondary requirement due to the limited forces available. Instead the brigade was to capture the town of Malmedy with KG X on the left flank attacking along the Ligneville road, and KG Y on the right flank attacking from Baugnez. The first attack at 03:00 failed, and Panther B5 was destroyed, while the supporting Panzer Grenadiers came under artillery fire, forcing them to withdraw at 05:00. A second attack at 10:30 the same day had the Warche River Bridge as the objective; this attack was stopped by artillery fire 100 meters from the bridge with the loss of Panther B4 and later in the day, Panther B10. The remainder of Panzer Brigade 150 was attacked from the air; this however also resulted in 300 American troops and 200 Belgian civilians being killed in air raids on Malmedy by American medium and heavy bombers of the US Ninth Air Force (117th Infantry Regiment had erroneously reported that Malmedy had been taken). The bombers returned on the 24th and 25th of December, due to no one correcting that miscommunication to the Air Force, resulting in the almost complete destruction of Malmedy.
Panther B5 was knocked out on the outskirts of Malmedy with a bazooka by Private Francis Currey of K Company, 120th Infantry, 30th Infantry Division, the action earning him the Congressional Medal of Honor. Panther B7 was destroyed by artillery fire on the outskirts as well, just 100 meters from the bridge over the river Meuse, with four of the five-man crew being killed while bailing out. Panther B10 (Commanded by 1st Lt. Gertenschlager) was lost while retreating from an artillery barrage, having crashed into the Café du Rocher de Falize. Panther B4 (Commanded by 1st Lt. Peter. Mandt) hit a mine near the railroad viaduct losing its left track. The fifth and final Panther with the unknown designation was abandoned on the Malmedy-Spa road.
The result of all this was the complete failure of Panzer Brigade 150 to capture any of its objectives, and cost them all of their heavy equipment and 450 men. The brigade was withdrawn from battle on the 28th of December, and disbanded, with all troops being returned to their previous units.
