I was there. I didn't shoot the car on purpose. All of a sudden she was driving through there. While shooting, I looked through my crosshairs and I saw her driving right across my fire. Whether I hit her or not … I always believe I did.
Sounds to me like, as jdginaz said, the car drove right into the middle of an ongoing firefight and got shot up.
One can hardly blame an 18 year old soldier, in the middle of a fight for his own life, for shooting and hitting something that's moving around the battlefield.
By the way, those words are the words of Gustav Schaefer, radio operator (hull machine gunner) in a Panther tank of PzBrigade 106, which had a jammed turret and was under fire by that Sherman tank (and US infantry) in Cologne.
So yeah, the US tanker may have shot the woman in the car, or the German tanker may have shot the woman in the car. Getting shot is a rather likely result of driving in between two tanks that are shooting at each other in a war.
She was lucky that it was the Americans who advanced, and the Germans who withdrew, in that case. Not that German medics wouldn't have wanted to treat a German civilian woman injured in the combat zone, but I doubt they would have had the time or supplies.
-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)
tries the naval wargame in the Axis & Allies series.
