In the thread about Dragon's Marder II I mentioned that i own 2 reference pics of this specific vehicle in my grandfather's photo album. After being questioned about these pics i thought it a good idea to start scanning the album and to share these pics with you guys here. So here the go.

Please note that the pics are over 60 years old, note it the best condition after als these years and in very little format. I scanned them at 300 dpi to give them a nice viewable size.

The background:

I think most grand children can tell war stories from their grandfathers, if the were willing to talk about. I don't know in which specific unit / division my grandpa fought, but here are the things i remember, since i can not ask him anymore.

My grandpa voluntered in November 1941 at the age of 17 to become part of a Panzerjäger- (Tank destroyer) Company. The main thoughts about that was, to avoid being send to the infantry.
At the eastern front he was mainly stationed in the Orel-/Reshev-Area in 1942. I think most of the pictures I own are from 1942 to early 1943. His unit was equipped this PAK 40's but he also mentioned that he later also operated on a self-propelled gun.
During the battle of kursk he got seriously wounded at the age of 18. Due to the belt buckle he survived to hits from a russian mg. on round penetrated the buckle and was slowed down before entering the stomach. He also told, how lucky he were.
After being at hospital for 13 months and serving in a tank training company he had to take part in the Ardennes offensive on the western front this time on Jagdpanzer Hetzer.
As the war neared it's end, he had to blow up a bridge, but he refused that order and decided to end the war for him. He also avoided being taken prisoner by the Americans, but unfortunatly they got most of his medals.

Pics:
PAK 40 in winter 1

PAK 40 in winter 2

PAK 40 in winter 3

PAK 40 destroyed by a mine

Marder II on russian road 1

Marder II on russian road 2

Feel free to use the pics for private use only, but please don't publish them anywhere else without my permission.

Patrick, thanks for posting these, no apologies for quality necessary, they are excellent, & every one a diorama idea. Now I wonder how many others are sitting on photos like these without even knowing?

Don't really meant it as apology. My favourite is PAK-40-pic no. 2. I already thought about making a dio from that one.

Really interesting photos. Thanks for posting them. You are right about Pak-40-pic 2, it is very interesting idea for a dio.

Thanks Patrick,

It's a nice piece of history and it was great of you to share it. It still amazes me the number of stories or information that is lost.

The pictures look great,

Thanks again,
Bob

Patrick
Thank you for the pics Anyone know what type of trailers the Marders are towing? I assume the trailers carried ammo

Patrick, thanks very much for these pics. If you have any more, and you'd be willing to share them, i'd be delighted to help you put together a photo-feature with them. This kind of material is totally priceless to the modeller. That said, I agree with the others, that photo 2 is amazing although one of the pics with the Marder is VERY unusual in that it shows it towing an ammo trailer... Thanks very much for sharing these!..Jim

Wow, Great pics! And to share family memories is very special, thank you very much!

Thanks for sharing. Great pics. I like the two Marder Pics. You get to see the true camo that was used back in the day.

thx for the nice comments. maybe doing a photo-feature will be a nice idea. i also thought about doing a personal webpage, but don't know when i have time to start that. i will see how how fast i can scan the interesting pics. a few are portraits and comrade-pics. i don't assume they are of interest. on the other hand there are also very few pics depicting structures/building in russia. they might be of interest.

unfortunatly i work 250km from home, so i don't have access to a scanner or broadband internet connection. my scanning efforts are restricted to the weekend. i will try to get 5 to 10 pics on the scanner each weekend.

here i have another three pics for you guys:
Knocked-out T-34

Road signs (especially for FAUST)

Column of Panzer III, maybe Ausf. J (I'm no expert of this)


maybe some of you guys know which german unit had an arrow as enblem as displayed on the road sign picture. eventually i can then find out in which unit my grandpa served...

Ola Patrick

Stunning set of pics you have mate. Lookign forward to more. I really want to thank you for posting the pic of the roadsigns. Very very usefull for the project I`m working on now and for which you already helped me a lot. I also already saved the pic to my PC for reference.

Great job and very nice pictures.

Cheers for that! More reference photos to add to my collection. I think i might need to get a bigger HD soon.