Who knows the story of the Panzers in Syria?

[swannie52]

I have hit a brick wall in my search for the truth about German Tiger Tanks discovered abandoned during the route of the Syrians on the Golan in the '73 operation. I read a story at the time or shortly thereafter which told me--or at least I understodd it as such--that a WW2 vintage German Tiger Tank maybe more than one had been found abandoned on the road to Damascus by the Israelis and carted back home. The article went on to say that a Museum in the US was taking delivery of the last working Tiger from Israel--and that was where it talked about the tanks being stored by the Yugo's or Checzs after WW2 and then sold to the Syrians. Later after writing to various Museums to confirm it I found that noone had knowledge of the story which baffled me because I know what I read.

One Museum came back with some knowledge on some Panzer 4's that had been found in that campaign as well as a Panzer 3 and I even saw a pic or two of these on display at the IDF armour museum--in reasonably good shape. Does anyone know the real unabridged, unexaggerated, and truthful story of the Last Panzers of The Golan? If so please enlighten me. If there are pics or a lot of text involved (hopefully) please send them by email. I want to know this story.

[Keith Heitmann]

I haven't heard of any "Tigers" being found. I think that would be rather unlikely. The only working Tiger that I know if is a Tiger II in a french museum.

There were supposedly some Panzer IVs still in use by the Syrians or somewhere in the middle east as late as the 1960s. I did recall seeing a picture of one tank that was purchased by a collector or re-enactment group that was in the process of being unloaded from a barge in the US.

[swannie52]

Seriously ketth this story was right there and I read it as Tiger tanks--6 of them in fact. The article even mentioned that 2 of them were still 'ticking over' on the damascus road. But the museums did respond as I said by telling me that these were in fact Panzer 4's and that the journalist had used licence with the story for effect. But they definitely did confirm that they were Panzer's and sent the pics of some of these at the IDF armour museum. So slowly I am slowly beginning to believe that they were in fact German tanks but not Tigers.

Still amazing that they were in use in 1973 and in good running order too!

[ksbearski]

Swannie-

Yep, the Syrians still had Pzkw IV's, but remember, the Israeli's were still using reworked Shermans at the time, which were called "Super" Shermans. I believe that they sported 105 mm guns.

Barry

[PUFF88]

i dont remember if it was the 67 or the 73 war, but one of the arab armies had some old russian tanks, joseph stalins and i think it was the t-34/85 tanks that they were supplied by the russians. i dont recall how many though. I did not hear about any panzers there before, but i did read about the egyptians using a old german self propelled 150mm , that had been left behind from the afrika korp. i have a picture of it in one of my books. i think it was the Yom Kippur War, was the title. but dont remember the author