26th November, breaking the Siege of Aalter

Jerry had Aalter pinned right down, Panzers and infantry were roaming the streets with impunity. The few remaining French soldiers in the town knew they had to hold out until reinforcements could arrive.

I left Dienze, hearing that German armour and troops were approaching the town to cut off any reinforcements. We left the road to avoid any Jerry troops and headed NW, hoping to reach the relative safety of the woods to the south of the town. At halfway we rejoined the road, and stopped to have a listen around. Sure enough, there were Jerry tanks all over the ground between the Gent forward base and the town, but the bushes and hilly ground made it hard to spot the enemy tanks.

2 German recon tanks (232s) were probing the area to my north. I waited until they stopped and then fired HE and AP rounds at them. The HE had little effect, and the AP seemed to just go straight through. Luckily my presence was enough to make them piss off and I could move up to take a position in a bushline covering a large field. hopefully enemy tanks would pass through this field and I could get some good flank shots.

I waited. They came in dribs and drabs. First a Pz IIc drove straight through the gunsights at about 700yds and exploded as I hit him with AP. Then another 232, seemingly looking for me drove around the field and stopped about 200yds from my position. I made no mistake this time, hitting the driver/gunner area with AP disabling the 232. Then another PzII, at first looking a lot like a IVD came cautiously creeping through the bushes at the far end of the field. Luckily he was going slow enough to be relatively easy to lead and although he was hidden from view, a few AP shots later and a stream of black smoke showed me he was out of commision. Not far behind, a German Tank Destroyer was trundling through the field. This time I held my shot, waiting until he was within about 500yds and aiming for the spot above the third road wheel. BANG he went up like a roman candle!

Another IIC came along afterwards, this one was a lot more cagey (probably due to the tank wrecks he had driven past) and stopped dead in front of me at about 800yds. He scanned around with his turret, at one time pointing straight at me. I waited to make sure no other tanks were around, and started hitting him with AP. A few rounds later, he brewed up too.

The attack was called off soon after, unfortunately my tank was hit by an 88 shell as I was returning it to the army base.