Dear Reader,*
First of all, I would like to present a brief
background upon how I came to know Max, our
eventual friendship, and just what led to
editing and thus providing you the reader with
his life's story.
Many years ago now, when the internet was really
nothing more than a fanciful bunch of
interconnecting bulletin boards relaying
information via "mainframes" to the many hubs
within the United States and elsewhere, I
happened to enjoy haunting the hundreds upon
hundreds of places a person could "dialup" and
go to read on history, military wherewithal,
etc. I was doing just that on the old "Prodigy"
server, when I came upon a page that promoted a
somewhat heated discussion on the various
weaponry used around the "Eastern Theatre" of
operations during W.W.II.
While reading some of the posts there, I came
upon an argument that an idiot kid from the
United States was having using an ID by the name
of Wren1. Now the kid, who for the purposes of
this informational we will call "Dummy", was
posting all sorts of information about how the
German 20mm Gun, "couldn't dent the side of a
T34/76 no less destroy an HT for that matter."
The discussion became somewhat heated, mainly
because there were other "Posting Readers" of a
knowledgeable kind, who knew that velocity
notwithstanding, Russian Armour was never what
it amounted to be, mainly because of the
inferior metals used around the Urals at the
time.
Well, finally, as I continued to return to this
particular BB to see what may or may not have
developed in these replies, a gentleman who's id
was MK1 began to post. He clearly stated that a
20mm gun could in fact penetrate a hull of a
T34/76, and could do a, "Hell of a lot" more
damage than that.
Well, it was on!
The "Dummy" came back with all sorts of
measurements, statistics about the gun mantlet,
the hull, the sloping armour, the thickness
versus velocity penetration, etc. etc. etc.
Oh it was a laugh....
MK1 would respond, simply...."nope".
Now please remember, for a couple of years
before this I would return to many places on the
WWW to copy, perhaps do further research on
armour plating for a Museum Curator in Mattituck
Long Island, or just learn about the many
assortments of diversified German material
during the time...but this "Mk1" individual
astounded me. In fact so much so, that I
responded (which I did then very rarely) to one
of his replies, and asked quite simply, "How do
you know these things?" I did so, because here
was "Dummy", burning up the web with his
constant number crunching, his material
intelligence, his scientific proof, etc....
Well, to my astonishment and mainly because I
really didn't think that there were many of them
left anymore, the reply to me and to "Dummy" was
very simply...
"Because I was there and a 20mm Flak Gunner."
Since that day as this last message was posted
in reply to my question, "Dummy" nor any of the
contradicting friends of his, ever discussed the
matter as if they knew what they were talking
about again. I just sat behind my IBM 386 and
blatantly hunted down MK1 for weeks to no avail.
Finally, about a year or two after, I posted a
new subject to the very same bulletin board
requesting true to life stories about
W.W.II for a new site I was developing in a game
called STEEL Panthers...namely, "Jim's Tiger
Page", and lo and behold, MK1 bites!
At first he was very wary about giving out his
name, any information, etc. for fear that he
would be brandished a "Nazi" lover, or Nazi
himself, etc. I respected his privacy the best
that I could, and only after many many posts did
he finally send a private e-mail address for me
to write to him. It took the better part of a
year to develop the mutual respect necessary to
be more than just "posting" computer generating
nobody's, and over the years since that day he
became somewhat of a Father figure to me.
Max died about 4 months ago now, but I was
honored to be a part of a mutual friendship I
will never forget. I learned a lot about W.W.II,
the German Army, and picked the poor old man's
brains for everything possible about this
important time in history.
What you will read here is an accumulation of
what I forced him to write down (in his exact
words with no corrections whatsoever). It wasn't
easy, as he was in and out of health, visiting
his great great grandchildren, and generally
hesitant about discussing a time in his life
which was very difficult and not at all
something he went out of his way to want to
remember.
So Mein Freund, Sit back, grab yourself a cold
one, read on and toast one of the most brave and
honorable men I have ever had the privilege of
knowing.
God Bless you Max. You are sorely missed my
friend.
James L Perlowski Jr.
May, 2002
*
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Tiger1Productions Ltd. and the author.
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address, and we will consider this for
duplication.