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Lt Col James H. Howard's P-51 Mustang with 12 kill marks for aerial victories over German and Japanese pilots. A victory marking (also called a victory mark, kill marking, or kill mark, or mission symbol) is a symbol applied in stencil or decal to the side of a military aircraft, ship or ground vehicle to denote a victory achieved by the pilot or crew against an aerial target.
Its name, Totenkopf, is German for "death's head" – the skull and crossbones symbol – and it is thus sometimes referred to as the Death's Head Division. [ 2 ] The division was formed through the expansion of Kampfgruppe Eicke , a battle group named – in keeping with German military practice – after its commander, Theodor Eicke .
Both the 3rd SS Panzer Division of the Waffen-SS, and the World War II era Luftwaffe's 54th Bomber Wing Kampfgeschwader 54 were given the unit name "Totenkopf", and used a strikingly similar-looking graphic skull-crossbones insignia as the SS units of the same name. The 3rd SS Panzer Division also had skull patches on their uniform collars ...
It began in great secrecy on 6 March 1945. The German forces launched attacks in Hungary near Lake Balaton. This area included some of the last oil reserves still available to the Axis. The operation involved many German units withdrawn from the failed Ardennes Offensive on the Western Front, including the 6th SS Panzer Army and the LSSAH ...
This is a list of German military units during World War II which contains all military units that served with the German Armed Forces . Major units above corps level are listed here. For smaller units, see list of German corps in World War II and list of German divisions in World War II .
In World War II, overclaims were a common problem. Nearly 50% of Royal Air Force (RAF) victories in the Battle of Britain , for instance, do not tally statistically with recorded German losses; but some at least of this apparent over-claiming can be tallied with known wrecks, and German aircrew known to have been in British PoW camps.
The designation "Light" (leichte in German) had various meanings in the German Army of World War II. There were a series of 5 Light divisions; the first four were pre-war mechanized formations organized for use as mechanized cavalry, and the fifth was an ad hoc collection of mechanized elements rushed to Africa to help the Italians and ...
Army rank insignia Specialty insignia (NCOs and enlisted) The Heer as the German army and part of the Wehrmacht inherited its uniforms and rank structure from the Reichsheer of the Weimar Republic (1921–1935). There were few alterations and adjustments made as the army grew from a limited peacetime defense force of 100,000 men to a war ...