Afrika Korps, POW, Belfast buses

Seems to have been an interesting chap:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/25/werner-heubeck-obituary

 

Excellent.

I liked this:

"an army bomb disposal team got a shock when, lining up their
Wheelbarrow robot to fire a pressurised water disrupter, Heubeck came
into sight on their viewfinder, walking along inside the target bus. As
they watched in astonishment, he calmly moved the device to the street
and asked the army to neutralise it there. Disposal teams came to regard
him with a mixture of annoyance and reluctant admiration."

 

The North African campaign carried on well into 1943.

 

No. The Wehrmacht wasn't kicked out of North Africa for another year or
so.

Yup.

 

No point hanging about there was a war on.

 

Apparently his transport to Africa was sunk in the Straits of Sicily, he
swam to shore (Cape Bon) and was then captured shortly after - he never
got to the desert.

This means it must have been May 1943: see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunisia_Campaign#Endgame

 

All his friends called him 'Lucky'

 

The DAK ceased to exist as a true organisation past late '41.

"As the entire Afrikakorps organization was restructured and even
renamed in August 1941, the nomenclature of Afrikakorps lasted less
than six months. The famous force, with the short-lived name
Afrikakorps, became a major German component of Panzer Army Africa;
Panzerarmee Afrika, which evolved into the German-Italian Panzer Army
(Deutsch-Italienische Panzerarmee) and then to Army Group Africa
(Heeresgruppe Afrika) in the twenty-seven months of the campaign for
this force." Wikipedia.

 

1100 buses FFS! good grief.

 

He didn't make all that much of a difference. I'm surprised he bothered,
really.