SS Paratroopers with Captured British and US Flags

Image size: 1600 x 750 pixel. 192 KB
Date: Thursday, 25 May 1944
Place: Drvar, Croatia, Yugoslavia
Photographer: Unknown

Paras of SS-Hauptsturmführer Kurt Rybka's SS-Fallschirmjäger-Bataillon 500 posing with trophies flags captured during its daring but unsuccessful parachute assault on Marshal Josip Broz Tito's communist partisan headquarters in Drvar, Yugoslavia, on 25 May 1944. Tito and the communist partisans were financed and assisted primarily by the British and the USA. Over 700 of the 1,000 personnel who participated in this operation, known as Rösselsprung, were killed or wounded. The SS-Fallschirmjägerbataillon 500 was a parachute unit of the Waffen-SS made up of an equal percentage of volunteers from both regular Waffen-SS troops, and more specifically, from officially disgraced Waffen-SS officers and enlisted men who wished to redeem themselves under fire. In other words, it was a unit where dishonored officers and men convicted by courts-martial of minor infractions and currently in disciplinary straits could redeem their soldierly honor by participation in hazardous duties and operations. The first gathering of recruits was at Chlum in Czechoslovakia in October 1943. The SS paras wore standard Waffen-SS tunics and caps with Luftwaffe-issue jump smocks, trousers, boots and M38 helmets. Most of the volunteers appear to have removed the Luftwaffe breast eagles from their smocks. The training was completed at the beginning of 1944. The battalion often acted as a 'fire brigade' in the defense of the Baltic States. The brave paratroopers of the SS-Fallschirmjägerbataillon 500 who survived long enough to see the formation of the SS-Fallschirmjägerbataillon 600 were given back their previous ranks and the right to wear the SS sig rune on 9 November 1944. At least five Scandinavians are known to have served in this battalion. Two companies of the later battalion took part in the Ardennes offensive in December 1944 as a part of the Austrian SS-Obersturmbannführer Otto Skorzeny's 150.SS-Panzer-Brigade wearing American uniforms and using American equipment. Only 180 out of 3,500 Waffen-SS paratroopers survived the war!

Source :
https://feldgrau.info/waffen/64-2010-09-02-12-20-17/19365-podborka-foto-509
http://stabswache-de-euros.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2018-10-24T20:07:00%2B02:00&max-results=1&start=1&by-date=false