Chief of Battle: Part two

 Part one can be found here

Late at night on August the first 1990, Kuwaiti Intelligence learned of the impending Iraqi invasion.  They immediately flashed the warning up through the chain of command.  The Kuwaiti 35th Brigade hurriedly started to mobilise its Chieftain tanks.  They were hampered by having some squadrons detached to guard duties elsewhere, and numerous soldiers away on leave.

As the unit began phoning around trying to find soldiers, one of the Brigade officers began combing through personnel files of soldiers on base.  If they'd had any armour training, no matter how long ago, they were assigned to composite crews.
Meanwhile other troops started to load ammunition into the tanks. Unfortunately this wasn't complete by the time the unit moved out at 0600.  In the previous 8 hours the 35th Brigade had managed to find 36 full crews, and partially load their tanks with ammunition. There hadn't been time to boresight (zero) the guns, and the tanks were carrying insufficient supplies of water.  The number of tanks was further reduced when one tank broke down on the very short march north.
The 35th Brigade deployed two battalions that day.  The 7th Battalion had 25 tanks, in three understrength companies while the 8th Battalion, was just a single company of ten tanks.

The 7th Battalion who were in the lead deployed in hull down positions, in a line, near a graveyard between the town of Al Jahra and Mutlaa ridge.  A six lane highway ran diagonally down from the ridge to Al Jahra, and then linked  to a ring road.  There was a police station next to the road on the ridge, and the 7th Brigade sent a reconnaissance vehicle there.  It reported a column of Iraqi's advancing down the road, this turned out to be the Republican Guards Hammurabi Division. 

As the Iraqi's reached the ring road at 0645, the 7th Battalion opened fire.  For the Chieftains with their fearsome firepower the range the Kuwaitis were firing at was practically point blank (around 1500 metres).  Here at last was the tank battle the Chieftain had been designed for, defending a line against a larger force of Soviet armour.

The pounding the Iraqi's were taking suddenly let up. Lieutenant-Colonel Al Wazan, the commander of 7th Brigade had received orders to cease fire and return to base!  For a few moments the Iraqi's could collect their battered wits, then LTC Al Wazan used his initiative and ordered his battalion to open fire again.
By now the 8th Battalion had arrived on the battlefield.  There was an Infantry unit inside Al Jahra that would be surrounded so the 8th Battalion was ordered to advance and link up with the Infantry.

Captain Ali, the commander of the the Battalion moved up to the first obstacle, the six lane ring road around Al Jahra.  He quickly realised that any attempt to cross the road, especially the central barrier would result in a massacre of his unit. With that in mind he fell back and emplaced his company to the east of the 7th Battalion on the other side of a road that led to the west from the Ring road.
Almost immediately after taking up positions a car came screeching up behind Cpt Ali's tank.  He was happy to see the gunner from his normal crew leap out of the drivers seat.  The gunner was the battalions best shot, and had been at home on leave when the news of the Iraqi attack had come in.
No sooner than the gunner had taken his seat, he spotted and killed an Iraqi command/observation vehicle that was mostly obscured by a bridge.  Then an Iraqi platoon of three T-72's wormed its way through Al Jahra and tried to launch a flank attack on the 8th Battalion.  The Kuwaiti tanks easily spotted them and destroyed all three.

As the morning wore on the tanks had been engaged for a long time, and now the lack of water began to tell, on both sides.  At some of the lulls in the battle soldiers from both sides queued up next to each other to buy water from a local roadside water vendor.

About 1100 hours a new threat began to develop.  Along the road leading to the west came a second Iraqi division.  This was the Republican Guards Medina Division.  A small battery of SPG's had set up there to support the tanks.
The battery commander upon seeing the tanks approach at first thought they were Saudi re-enforcements so he closed with them.  As he got closer he saw the tanks were T-72's. If he ran now after being spotted, the Iraqis would realise they were Kuwaitis and obliterate them.
So he decided to bluff, he walked up to the lead T-72 and spoke to the commander and gathered some intelligence on the Iraqis.  When the tanks drove past they were none the wiser.

With enough warning from the artillery position the 8th Battalion shifted so that it refused its left flank, and could keep the Hammurabi Division to its front and also cover the back of the 7th Battalion.  The Medina T-72's stormed down the road towards Al Jahra unaware of exactly what was happening.

The Medina Division drove between both Kuwaiti battalions and as it entered the frontal arcs of the 7th Battalion all the defenders opened fire wreaking havoc.  As the Medina Division fell back after a very short exchange of fire the artillery battery took them under bombardment.

By early afternoon however, the 35th Brigade was running out of ammunition, the tanks had three rounds left at most and many had less.  Equally the lack of water was becoming a concern.  The biggest issue was that the Medina Division was forming up for another attack from the rear.  With no other choice LTC Al Wazan ordered his brigade to retreat.  The brigade crossed the border into Saudi Arabia at 1630.

The Chieftain had proved it was able to do exactly what it was designed to do, hold larger forces of Soviet armour at bay.  The 35 Chieftains had held up the lead elements of two divisions for nearly ten hours.  As well as the one breakdown the brigade had only lost two tanks in the battle.

[WoT] Feedback on Live 0.8.11

How do you like the recent update for World of Tanks? Precisely:

1. FOV changes
2. Any issues with aiming/reticle especially while leading targets?
3. National battles aka "Confronation"? Balanced? Fun to play?

Everything else also counts. Share your thoughts.

UPD.
FOV issue is going to be fixed. Most likely will reverse to the previous one and make FOV adjustments in the settings. 

Chief of Battle: Part one

In the late 40's the British started looking for a new design of tank to replace their Centurions.  However, nothing came of that programme and the Centurions remained in service. A decade later the same idea came up again.

Design started in the early 1950's on the Medium Gun tank No 2, renamed in 1962 to the FV4201. The two main requirements were for survivability and firepower.  These requirements were due entirely to the expected threat of the Warsaw Pact forces.
In line with with NATO it was decided to fit multi-fuel engines to all new tanks.  Everyone else quickly realised this was impractical, however, despite reservations the Chieftain was fielded with such an engine.  It is safe to say that the engine was the thing that broke the tank.
The L60 multi-fuel engine was based on parts from a World War Two era Junkers Jumo engine, the same type as those fitted to the various German bombers!  It was also built by a company that had a less than stellar reputation in the motoring industry.  The engine performance was so poor that when in 1960 automotive trials were carried out, the tank actually failed to finish.

Conqueror, Centurion and Chieftain

In other aspects, the tank was excellent.  The 120mm L11 gun provided unmatched range, precision and killing power.  At the time nearly all tanks were armed with guns of around 100mm calibre.  The split case ammunition was found not to lower the tanks rate of fire and it enabled many advantages such as the ability to store all explosives below the level of the turret ring, while the solid armour piercing rounds could be stored in the turret.

The armour protection to the front of the tank was provided by cast armour inspired by an IS2 the British had found under a collapsed block of flats in Berlin in 1945. The casting of the turret was so thick that each one had to cool for one year.

In 1962 two tanks were given to the British army for testing in the German winter.  At first the crews loved the ability for the tracks to grip the ground, and the handling was deemed to be excellent.  Then the crews realised the tank lacked a heater.

The lack of a heater wasn't as much of an issue in Iran.  By the time of the 1979 revolution the Iranian army had brought about 700 Chieftains.  At the end of 1980 when the Iran-Iraq war broke out, those Chieftains were still crewed by experienced well trained soldiers.  The High Command of the Iranian forces wasn't of such high quality.  In the Chieftains first combat deployment it began to show its flaws, these were exacerbated by the poor Iranian command.

In January 1981, after the Iraqi offensive had run out of thrust the Iranians launched a counterattack at a place called Susangerd.  The Iranians brought about 400 Chieftains to bear on a slightly smaller Iraqi force.  The Iranians lacked reconnaissance and artillery support.

Before the battle could be joined Iranian engineers began to construct bridges over the Karkheh River.  Without screening reconnaissance forces the Iraqi's could calmly watch and report.  Realising that a major offensive was planned the Iraqi force fell back two kilometres and took up defensive positions, also digging in on the flanks to create a perfect kill zone.

The area itself was the flood plain for the river, and was extremely boggy and wet.  Only two paved roads ran across the area. The lead Iranian Brigade attacked along these roads in column, with no scouts to screen them.
When the Iraqi's opened fire from their hull down positions they had perfect flank shots negating the huge advantage of the Chieftains frontal armour.  Equally when the Chieftains tried to manoeuvre they bogged down and became immobilised with frightening ease due to the poor power output and unreliability of the engine. The entire lead brigade was wiped out.

Frontal penetrating hits on Iranian Chieftains

The next day the Iranians launched their second brigade into the fight.  Through sheer brute force they managed to close with the Iraqi's.  The Iraqi's inexperience began to show, instead of out manoeuvring the Iranians they just held on and a brutal close range fight developed.  At such close range the massive fire-power of the Chieftains could smash through even the best armour of the Soviet tanks.

It was all for nought as the Iranian Chieftains took too much of a beating and they had to fall back.  After the battle one hundred Iranian tanks had been destroyed and a similar number were captured. The Iraqi's had lost about fifty tanks and fifty more smaller armoured vehicles.

This costly failure did combat test one part of the Chieftain that passed with flying colours, Crew survivability.  All the bag charges in the Chieftain were contained in a special storage container filled with a Glycol and water mixture. This often managed to retard the rate at which the bag charges burned when a tank was penetrated.  When a container was pierced there would be a white smoke and a loud hissing noise giving warning that a fire had started. Although eventually the fire would spread this would often take several minutes,  more than long enough to evacuate wounded crew members.  In comparison a Soviet tank on the Iraqi side would often be torn apart immediately by its ammunition exploding if it was penetrated.

Iraqi's bailing out of a BMP1

The frontal armour also worked.  Later in the war at a border check post called Zeid, an Iranian tank commander was hull down as the Iraqi's attacked.  Whilst he was using the periscope to direct his gunner towards one of the attacking Iraqi T-72's he suddenly couldn't see.  Sticking his head out of the hatch he saw a glowing spot on the turret front.  An Iraqi 125mm APDS (Armour Piercing Discarding Sabot) round had passed through the crest of the sand bank in front of his tank and impacted on his armour without penetrating.

Part two can be found here.

Edit 10/2/14:
Made a mistake with the dates, and I, rightly, got called up on it. The error is fixed now.

[WoTB] German Tech Tree

Initial German tech tree for World of Tanks Blitz revealed.

This makes it. All researchable tanks for Blitz have been announced by now. US and USSR. 

Let's Battle Magazine

Wargaming's Let's Battle magazine is now available for your mobile.

Check it out on iOS and Android.

Your feedback is appreciated.

[WoT360] Moar Tanks!!

World of Tanks 360 for Xbox 360 is now live! Not yet worldwide (this is to come).

Libya's Death Star

On the morning of the 19th of March 1987, the sun began to flood the desert around Bir Kora in northern Chad.  It revealed a parched desolate landscape with no vegetation at all, just reddened or ochre rocks.
It also revealed a Libyan tank battalion resting in Laager.  The Libyans had set out the day before from the fortified camp at Wadi Doum with the mission of retaking the town of Fada.  The Libyans hadn't deployed any scouts overnight, and little did they know the Chadian forces had found them and surrounded them.

Libyan Camp, photographed by French air force in 1986

Fada had fallen to the Chadian forces a couple of months previously.  The planned recapture of Fada was the latest in a series of battles fought between Libya and Chad over the previous 9 years.
Libyan forces had copied the Warsaw Pact doctrine, and purchased all the Soviets latest equipment with oil money.
Set against that you had the fierce, wiry desert tribesmen who were almost untrained. As an example the Chadian armies Special Forces received only six weeks of training.

The Libyan forces had set up a base at Wadi Doum.  The base was heavily fortified around a long runway, which ran between two hills.  On the top of those hills was a Soviet “Spoon Rest” radar system which controlled an entire SA-6 surface to air missile battery.  Over 5000 men were defending this complex loitering in the emptiness of the desert. One US intelligence official described it as equivalent of the Death Star from Star Wars.

French Air force photograph of an SA-6 at Wadi Doum

About 400m from the Libyan T55's lay a rocky hill with its sides covered by sand.  Hidden at the top of the hill was a Toyota pickup truck.  The Chadian soldier in the back was one of the few with a degree of training, as his Toyota mounted one of the latest French supplied weapons, a Milan guided anti-tank missile.
On a signal from their commander the Milan gunners launched a volley at the Libyan tanks.  Some missiles hit and some missed.  When they did hit the missiles easily punched through the tanks armour, often causing the turret to blow off.  The Libyans began to return fire although their rounds had little effect, as they were trying to hit a man sized target at 400m. Their shells peppered and blasted the rocks the Chadians were using as cover.
The Libyan commander ordered most of his forces to shift over to face the direction of the incoming fire.
As they did so the Chadians launched their real attack.  More Toyotas charged towards the weakened Libyan rear flank.  The few tanks left to defend it desperately tried to track their guns round onto the Toyota pickups which were moving at over 70mph across the fine sand.  Some of the T55's managed to get their guns on target, and even a near miss would smash the speeding pickup.  Unfortunately the Libyan numbers were too few to prevent the attack from breaking through the line.
The Libyans tried to shift some of their tanks back to face the threat, but they quickly bogged down in the fine talcum powder like sand.  Rampaging around inside the Laager the Chadians began to engage the Libyans with small arms, LAW’s (Light Anti-Tank Weapon) and RPG’s (Rocket Propelled Grenade).  Some were launched at such close range that the rockets would strike the tanks and the explosion would kill the firer.

The Libyan commander panicked and radioed to Wadi Doum for help, but before the relief force could set out the battle was over with a crushing victory to the Chadians. A few Libyans managed to flee back down the road towards Wadi Doum.

The tactics the Chadians had used were identical to ones the desert tribes had been using for centuries only replacing horses and camels with Toyotas.  Yosko Hassan, Assistant Commander for the force said to reporters later:
"We Chadians, we had nearly nothing. Our army is a young one, with very little means. We tried to act within our means."

 The fleeing Libyans met the relief column 12 miles back up the track, and the relief force took up a similar position overnight with a battery of six 122mm artillery guns.  Further up the track were a number of tanks. On the morning of the 20th the Chadians repeated their attack in almost exactly the same way.  This time the rout was even more pronounced. The Libyans fled with almost no fighting with the artillery not even firing a shot, and eleven T55's were abandoned where they sat, the keys still in the ignition.

The panicked fleeing troops reached Wadi Doum air base, and warned the defenders that the Chadian army was on the way.  The defenders ignored the dire warnings and continued with their daily routine. Some tended the small irrigated gardens which were the only green plants for hundreds of miles.  Others made plaques with passages from Qaddafi's green book or the Koran.  The words were made by gluing stones and pebbles to boards.
They defenders thought they were safe inside two rings of defensive lines and minefields. The approaching dust clouds were thought by some to be their missing troops returning. On the 22nd the Chadians attacked, quickly overwhelming the outer defensive line.

Wadi Doum under French Air attack in 1986

Knowing about the minefields some Chadian soldiers thought their Toyota's could skip right past the explosions unharmed, about 12 Toyotas tried this but were quickly destroyed.  The rest of the Toyotas formed up and charged down the road into the main gate.
The Libyans panicked, and despite having overwhelming numbers and fire-power they fled with no attempt at a coordinated fight.  The Chadians rampaged through the camp, occasionally pockets of resistance would be found and quickly destroyed by the Toyota borne Chadian army.  Within an hour the runway had been captured, and by the early evening the rest of the base was also captured.

Searching the base the Chadian army found massive quantities of weapons.  There were underground storage facilities holding weapons and ammunition, one had twelve brand new unused T2 tanks.  Outside in the vehicle park were the West German Faun tank transporters that had brought them to this base. Numerous aircraft were captured undamaged as well, although the assault had burned some out.  The prize was the full Soviet SA-6 battery, of a new type not known about by NATO.  After French requests the battery was transported to the south and well out of range of Libyan retaliation.

The Libyans began bombing the base in an attempt to destroy some of the $1 Billion worth of equipment captured by the Chadians.  One L39 Albatross flew to low and was shot down by a Stinger missile.  From then on the Libyans flew at high altitude, and although the Chadians fired more Stingers the Libyans were well out of range.  From that high altitude though, the bombing was largely ineffective.

The Libyans had about 1300 soldiers killed, and 500 captured. The Libyan regional commander, Colonel Khalifa Hastar was also captured, and his deputy Colonel Gassim abu Nawar was killed in the assault.  The Libyans also lost hundreds of tanks, APC's and trucks.
The Chadians lost 29 killed and 58 wounded.

But there is more to the story.  The few Libyans that managed to flee the battle, ran to the next Libyan fortification at the town of Faya-Largeau.  This was the home town of the Chadian President.
Some Libyans ran into their own minefields and were stranded and unable to move.  They were captured along with the city by the Chadian army on the 27th.
The forces of Chad didn't need to fire a single shot, as the Libyans ran before they arrived.

This part of the Chadian-Libyan conflict became known as the Toyota War, for obvious reasons.

[WoTB] World of Tanks Blitz: Tanks and Tablets

Popularity of the original World of Tanks did not leave aspiring game development studios indifferent. Since 2011 WoT-resembling (in terms of gameplay) products started to rocket on different platforms including mobile - smartphones and tablets. Naturally Wargaming.net is not going to disappoint their customers and is going to come up with their decent version of tanks for tablets.

Developing games for iOS and Android platforms is a very special case that requires very dedicated and focused professionals. Wargaming didn't have that kind of expertise until recently.

DAVA, a Belarusian development studio, was founded in March, 2008 in Minsk. The guys chose their specialization right away. They decided they would be developing apps for iOS. The date of founding the studio is close to the date of App Store creation (July 10, 2008). So, we may say that DAVA is a peer of the most popular iOS apps store.

While others were examining the newly appeared service, the young studio was already developing products for it and was among the pioneers on the newly-formed market.

DAVA had for co-founders: Andrew Karpiuk, Vitaly Borodovsky, Dmitry Bobrovnichiy, and Alexander Fomenko; as well as six key soldiers: Ivan Petrochenko, Alexey Prosin, Stepan Drozd, Kirill Poliakov, Victor Kleschenko, and Alexey Alexeev. This were the “bones” of the young development studio. Nobody in Belarus had developed anything for iOS befor DAVA was founded. And obviously WoT Blitz is not the first product the team has worked on. They had produced quite a few games and apps (with over 10 mln downloads and over a million purchases) before they started working on WoT Blitz. The team used to work as a subcontractor for Electronic Arts, iWin, Freeverse, and other publishers. The audience of DAVA own product users is about 9 million with a lot of apps and games to appear among TOP100 in free and grossing charts.

Some of the DAVA products include:

Modern Weapons: Small Arms (encyclopedia)

Jewel Quest Mysteries

Space Storm

Wargaming has been in touch with DAVA for quite some time. There even were a few ex-Wargamers working for DAVA. The acquisition finally took place in 2011. The first major game project - World of Tanks Blitz - was started in spring 2012 (first prototype) and officially greenlit in December 2012.

The mobile department of Wargaming currently consists of 3 independent teams:

-       The WoT Blitz team distributed in Minsk and a few Ukrainian cities.

-    Framework team (cross-platorm game engine development)

-       The Service Apps team developing apps assistants World of Tanks and World of Warplanes

Vitaly Borodovsky - tech director

UX/UI design in progress

Designing maps for Blitz

GD is thinking over a new feature - agile board in the background

As for the game, WoT Blitz, it has been demoed at multiple gaming shows throughout 2013 and early 2014, including public gaming areas during G-Star 2013 in Korea and Taipei Game Show 2014, which means that the game in nearing closed beta with iOS release scheduled for first half of 2014.

A couple of new screenies below.

The map is called "Mines". Should be recognizable 

From another perspective with HUD

Another map - Copperfield

[WoT] 0.8.11 is Coming

How do you like the upcoming 0.8.11 update for World of Tanks?

Any major concerns or ideas?

WT E100 will lose 200HP btw. 

Erfolgreiche Flucht!

On September the 5th, 1940, a ME109 was in a dive over England, with a Spitfire behind it. The ME109 pilots name was Franz Von Werra, and things were going badly. Just a week earlier he had returned from a sortie and claimed 9 RAF kills in that single mission, even though he hadn't a shred of proof. He'd been lauded across the German press for this feat. The fame had been welcome for Von Werra, who had been born in Switzerland to an impoverished noble family. Now he was about to start a true adventure which would rightfully make him famous, not the imaginary one which he had relied upon until then.

Escorting a bombing raid against Croydon, Von Werra had seen RAF fighters attack the bombers, and following the lead of his squadron commander they had prepared to dive on the RAF. As they committed themselves another flight of RAF Spitfires bounced them. In the ensuing dogfight Von Werra's ME109 had its engine damaged (some sources claim by frenziedly fire). As he dove away one of the spitfires latched onto his tail and followed him down pumping bursts into his stricken plane. As he roared over searchlight detachment the British soldiers had joined in firing Lewis guns at the ME109. Von Werra arrived in England, unhurt, only a few fields later, near a place called Loves Farm.

Von Werra's ME109

He was quickly taken prisoner by local farm workers and the cook from the Searchlight detachment, and was handed into the police force and then the army. He joined the rapidly growing umber of German airmen who were POW's of the British. During interrogation the British checked the details of Von Werra's story, and found the 9 kills to be false. The BBC made great work of the propaganda victory. However in an oddity of life, the Germans hearing the denunciations against Von Werra's tally thought it must be true and so he was credited with all the kills, this action got Von Werra awarded the knights Cross.

Meanwhile in the UK Von Werra was now at Camp No1 near Grizedale Hall in the Lake District. Where he hatched the first of many escape plans. The POW's were exercised outside the camp each day, and at the same point in the route the excursion party would pause to allow the POW's to rest. Von Werra proposed to simply slip over the wall at that location and escape. With the support of the camp he started making plans. First the senior German officer in the camp asked the British to change the time of the exercise period. With the excuse it was interfering with the German's educational activities the walk was dropped from the morning to the mid afternoon. This would mean Von Werra would only have to avoid capture for a few hours before night. Secondly a German was appointed to cause a small distraction amongst the guards.

On Monday the 7th of October the plan was put into action. The roads in the area were utterly deserted, but as fate would have it a Greengrocer's cart was approaching the corner when the Germans arrived.
The plan was put into action, as the German selected for the Decoy stepped out of line to talk to the British NCO leading the party, he was immediately yelled at and told to return to his place. Von Werra's plan was failing, as he didn't have distraction, and soon they'd move off again. Then the cart and horse passed by, and Von Werra spotted it would block the British guards line of sight to him and at the right moment he rolled over the stone wall. Lying in the shade of the wall he waited for yells from the guards. None came, eventually the party moved off with him unmissed! He was free!

Von Werra was however free in in the Lake District in Autumn. Three nights later he was sheltering in a small stone shed on the hills when two Shepard's in the Home Guard found him. As he was led away in captivity Von Werra suddenly threw his weight about and knocked the two men over and took off into the darkness. He easily outdistanced the two old Home Guards. With a rough location the net tightened, and eventually on the night of the 12th Von Werra was recaptured by a search party whom had just retired for the night to the local pub. When one man saw a lone figure in the distance, the party turned out and combed the area. Eventually Von Werra was found lying almost totally submerged in some mud.

After a period in solitary confinement Von Werra was transferred to a new camp, Hayes Camp, in Swanwick, Derbyshire. Here he worked with a number of other prisoners to dig an escape tunnel. On the 20th of December Von Werra and his fellow escapee's broke out. A diversion was provided by Germans singing loudly. The song they chose was a German folk song "Muss I denn, muss I denn, zum Stadtele hinaus", which translates as "I must away into the great wide world".

The next morning wearing his Luftwaffe flying uniform he claimed to be a Dutch pilot whose bomber had been shot down at a local railway station. Eventually through guile he managed to convince the station staff of his identity. After a phone call a car was dispatched from the local airbase, RAF Hucknall, to pick up Von Werra. When he arrived on the base he was questioned by a very suspicious squadron leader. While the Squadron leader attempted to contact Von Werra's invented unit and airbase, Von Werra excused himself to visit the toilet. Once out of sight he made a break for it, looking for a plane to steal and fly back to Germany! As luck would have it he climbed over a security fence and ended up in a Rolls Royce factory. A group of civilian mechanics approached and assumed he was an Air Transport Auxiliary pilot here to ferry a fighter plane to a front line unit. So after getting him to sign into the visitors book he selected a fighter.

But the engine wouldn't start. The mechanics went away to find a starter trolley to get the Merlin engine to turn over, while Von Werra sat in the cockpit, head down, familiarising himself with the controls. When he looked up he saw the squadron leader with a revolver aimed firmly at his face.
In January 1941 Von Werra was moved to another camp. This one was quite a bit further away, in Canada. The British assumed it would be extremely difficult for a German POW to escape across the Atlantic.

The Germans were shipped safely with a large escort, and when they had been disembarked they were placed upon a train. Each carriage had a couple of guards in it, but was otherwise a normal carriage. As the train moved across the Canadian countryside Von Werra worked at freeing the window he was sitting next to. It had been iced up by the harsh Canadian winter. Eventually he had it free, and at an opportune moment he signalled one of his fellow Germans, who stood up and started to fold his coat, blocking the guards view. At which point Von Werra went out the window of the moving train. After trudging through the snow he came to a river, which was partially iced up. The centre of the river was still flowing water. To get wet would have been deadly. Luckily Von Werra managed to find and steal a rowing boat and so crossed into the United states. Which at that time was still neutral.

Von Werra turned himself into the US police and was charged with entering the United States illegally. He contacted the German consul in the US, and while the Federal government was deciding what to do with his case, Von Werra had been smuggled out of the country, and through several other neutral countries until he returned to Germany.

Publicity photograph taken by the Germans of Von Werra and his pet Lion cub Simba

For his exploits he was awarded the Iron Cross. Von Werra was also asked to inspect the German POW arrangements for the British. He said upon viewing the conditions "Better to have been captured by the British than the Germans!". It was his comments that lead to the massive improvement in POW conditions for Western allies.
Von Werra returned to flying, and was lost over the North sea to mechanical failure on a training flight.