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This Glorious Pilgrimage

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Hamburg, Germany, at the Großer Burstah corner to Rödingsmarkt with the Hindenburghaus in the background, 4 May 1945. Official wartime caption: A “Firefly” 17-pounder Sherman tank on guard at the corner of Adolph Hitler Plasse.”

Mapham J (Sgt), No 5 Army Film & Photographic Unit, IWM BU 5255

The Firefly belongs to the British 7th Armoured Division, the famed “Desert Rats” who went a long way to chase Rommel out of North Africa before taking part in the Italian campaign and the drive across Northwest Europe. Hamburg would be the “Rats'” final combat of the war.

THE BRITISH ARMY IN NORTH-WEST EUROPE 1944-45 (BU 5284) A Sherman Firefly of 7th Armoured Division in Hamburg, 4 May 1945. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205203358

Summoned to Berlin in July 1945 to take part in the great Victory Parade through the ruined city, Winston Churchill addressed the division, saying:

Now I have only a word more to say about the Desert Rats. They were the first to begin. The 11th Hussars were in action in the desert in 1940 and ever since you have kept marching steadily forward on the long road to victory. Through so many countries and changing scenes you have fought your way. It is not without emotion that I can express to you what I feel about the Desert Rats.

Dear Desert Rats! May your glory ever shine! May your laurels never fade! May the memory of this glorious pilgrimage of war which you have made from Alamein, via the Baltic to Berlin never die!

It is a march unsurpassed through all the story of war so as my reading of history leads to believe. May the fathers long tell the children about this tale. May you all feel that in following your great ancestors you have accomplished something which has done good to the whole world; which has raised the honour of your country and which every man has the right to feel proud of

Today, they are remembered in the 7th Light Mechanised Brigade Combat Team, garrisoned at Kendrew Barracks, Cottesmore. And they still wear “The Rat” proudly.

 

Hamburg Firefly, 75 Years on

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Here we see a distinctive long-barreled British Sherman Firefly– a U.S.-made M4 Sherman with British radios and a QF 17-pounder gun– of the famous 7th Armoured Division (Desert Rats) in Hamburg, Germany, 4 May 1945.

IWM Photo BU 5281 by Sgt. A.N. Midgley, No. 5 Army Film and Photo Section, Army Film and Photographic Unit

Fireflies, fielded in 1944, were popular in Western Europe as they could penetrate the armor of German Panthers and the like with ease– something that couldn’t be said of American Shermans.

Another great image of this Firefly taken on the same day by Midgley also exists in the IWM’s collection. Offical caption, “British tanks of the 7th Armoured Division in the center of Hamburg, last war’s memorial is in the background.”

THE BRITISH ARMY IN NORTH-WEST EUROPE 1944-45 (BU 5284) A Sherman Firefly of 7th Armoured Division in Hamburg, 4 May 1945. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205203358

The Hamburg Cenotaph (Hamburger Ehrenmal) by the city hall, was built during the last days of the Weimar era featuring the work of sculptors Claus Hoffmann and Ernst Barlach, although some elements were later “sanitized” by the Nazis. The inscription from 1931 reads, “Vierzigtausend Söhne der Stadt ließen ihr Leben für euch, 1914–1918” (forty thousand sons of this city lost their lives for you)

The memorial is still there.

Photo by Magnus Manske BY-SA 3.0