The Elephant Armyto IndexArticles

New: Jan 3rd, 2002

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The Persian king, Darius I (558B.C.-486B.C.) is famous for his legendary elephant army. As I relate in this article, this persian tradition somehow crawled into the Wehrmacht.

Everyone knows the Mammoth of s.Pz.Abt.502 - carried by the equally legendary Tiger tanks. The picture shows the unlucky commander's tank that fell to the Red Army.

Back in 1976 when I bought PzKpfw IV in action (Ok, I'm old enough to buy this at the time of publication). an elephant on the winter-camouflaged tank (page 39) caught my eyes. This was my first encounter with this elephant insignia. Later, as many photos from this unit having been published, they turned out to be from 20.Panzer-Division. It is a pity that even recent publication like Panzer-Division 1935-1945 (3) (Concord 7035) says "The white elephant emblem on the rear of the turret schürzen beside the tactical number is that of s.Pz.Abt.502. This is one of at least two Pz.Kpfw.IV Ausf.G used by the batallion, though none appear on any known strength reports." Wrong direction, mein Herr! (though I have to confess that I've also followed wrong ways in the past)

Still I did not know why they chose elephant for the insignia. It was also not certain if this was the divisional or regimental insignia. But now, I know for sure that this is the insignia of the Panzer-Abteilung 21 and not of the division. Because on many pictures both the elephant and the arrow "break-the-enemy" divisional insignia are shown. The arrow marking is clearly shown on the fender of this car. And well, frequent readers of this page would now know what I am about to say...

The commander of this Abteilung was Hauptmann Wolfgang Darius. Yes, Darius, the same name as the ancient commander of the elephant army! Apparently the insignia was chosen after his name, when he took command of the Abteilung in the spring of 1943. Here you see the batallion commander's tank, field-modified Befehlspanzer IV Ausf.G with frame antenna (real Panzerbefehlswagen IV did not go into production until 1944). The legendary elephant revives!

From the photographic evidence I have, this insignia seems to have been painted only on this commander's tank "I" in the spring. But as is well known later all tanks carried this sign, and the usage continued long after he left the Abteilung due to his old belly wound in autumn.

By the way, as is often the case, Schmitz/Thies volume 4 carries incorrect informationdue to the old reference it refers (the arrow insignia was implemented before Kursk offensive, not in 1944).