Alfred Becker was a German engineer and artillery officer who served during the First and Second World Wars.
51 Facts About Alfred Becker
1.
2.
Alfred Becker used the vehicles to motorize German guns, rocket launchers and mortars.
3.
Alfred Becker used the tracked carriages of French light tanks to mobilize the 7.5 cm Pak 40 anti-tank gun and the 10.5 cm leFH 18 howitzer.
4.
Alfred Becker had the tank turrets removed, mounted the guns upon the chassis and placed steel plates around the crew compartment to give them some measure of protection.
5.
Alfred Becker was made the commander of this motorized assault gun battalion, and led the unit during the battles in Normandy.
6.
Some of Alfred Becker's unit escaped the encirclement at Falaise and they retreated across France and into Belgium.
7.
At the outset of The Great War, Alfred Becker volunteered at the age of 15.
8.
Alfred Becker served in the artillery and became an officer.
9.
Alfred Becker was awarded the Iron Cross for his actions at Verdun and again at Cambrai.
10.
Alfred Becker was injured by poison gas a few weeks before the end of the war.
11.
Alfred Becker formed a small manufacturing firm, Alfred Becker AG of Bielefeld.
12.
On 28 August 1939 Alfred Becker was called up to serve in the 227th Infantry Division "Rhine-Westphalian", drawn from the Krefeld area during the 3rd wave mobilization.
13.
Alfred Becker was made an officer in the division's 15th Artillery Regiment, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Edgar Feuchtinger.
14.
In December 1939 Alfred Becker's division was reassigned and became a part of Army Group B under command of Generalfeldmarshall Fedor von Bock, in preparation for Fall Gelb.
15.
Alfred Becker's division reached the Grebbe line, where it was held up for three days.
16.
Alfred Becker used other captured Belgian trucks to motorize the field piece transport of his division's reconnaissance battalion, thereby increasing this unit's mobility as well.
17.
Alfred Becker selected the light but reliable British Light Tank Mk.
18.
Alfred Becker had the machine gun turret removed and mounted a 10.5 cm leFH 16 howitzer upon the chassis.
19.
Alfred Becker's was the only infantry division on the Eastern Front to have a motorized artillery battery.
20.
Alfred Becker was ordered back from the east front to the Alkett company to consider a means by which they might mobilize the 7.5 cm Pak 40 anti-tank gun.
21.
Alfred Becker was transferred to this company and given access to their experience and expertise.
22.
Alfred Becker chose the French ammunition carriers as the platform for a self-propelled 150 mm sFH 18 heavy field howitzer.
23.
Alfred Becker was then to collect them and convert them to practical German use.
24.
The order required Alfred Becker to create enough usable equipment to form "at least" two panzer divisions.
25.
Alfred Becker set up his headquarters at the Matford Factory in Poissy in the Paris outskirts, just northwest of the city.
26.
Alfred Becker organized his men into special parties to commence a thorough search of the occupied territory in the west for wrecked vehicles previously thought useful only for scrapping.
27.
Alfred Becker was assigned an engineering staff, who set about their work modifying what was available.
28.
From 1942 through 1943 Alfred Becker salvaged all the usable tank wreckage that could be found in France.
29.
Some 1,800 armoured fighting vehicles were created at his Alfred Becker, which produced a variety of innovative designs.
30.
From July to August 1942 Alfred Becker converted 170 armoured vehicles into the.
31.
The artillerymen of the 12th Battery that Alfred Becker had left in Russia were in harsh conditions.
32.
Concerned for the men in his old unit and needing their skills for the work he was doing, Alfred Becker requested the transfer of the men from the 12th Battery back to his command in Paris.
33.
In exchange Alfred Becker provided the commander of the 227th Infantry Division with 20 of his armoured vehicles.
34.
Early in 1943 the Alfred Becker was visited by Albert Speer, and the Matford factory was reviewed by Speer, with General Feuchtinger and Major Alfred Becker.
35.
Vehicles were in short supply, and as OKH was well aware of the production out of Alfred Becker, they made the unusual requirement that the reforming 21st Panzer Division not make a request for any equipment or vehicles.
36.
Alfred Becker produced a great many vehicles for, soon to be expanded into a division.
37.
Alfred Becker produced a great number of half-tracks making use of captured and refurbished French vehicles.
38.
Alfred Becker produced enough of these to motorize one of the two infantry regiments of the 21st Division.
39.
Alfred Becker recorded in his archive his assessment of the unit's effectiveness in Normandy:.
40.
Alfred Becker's command had been supplemented by a battalion of Panzer Mk IV tanks from the 22nd Panzer Regiment, a battalion of Tiger tanks from the 503 Heavy Panzer Battalion, and Becker's StuG 200.
41.
Alfred Becker arrived at Luck's command post in Frenouville and reported he had established radio contact with all of his battery commanders.
42.
Alfred Becker's unit communicated using a low frequency radio that had limited range but prevented the detection of the signal of origin by the Allies.
43.
Alfred Becker moved the 2nd Battery from Giberville back to Hubert-Folie, while he kept the 3rd Battery in Grentheville.
44.
The last major engagement of Alfred Becker's unit was Operation Bluecoat, another British offensive drive where Alfred Becker's weakened unit was committed to slow the progression of the 11th Armoured Division south of Saint-Martin-des-Besaces.
45.
On 1 August 1944 while in Le Tourneur Alfred Becker was injured in the left thigh by shrapnel from an artillery round.
46.
On 2 July 1944 Major Alfred Becker had been recommended for the award of the, or the Knight's Cross of the War Service Cross with Swords.
47.
Alfred Becker survived the war and in 1947 married a French woman he had met in Normandy while recovering from wounds.
48.
Alfred Becker restarted a machining business in Dusseldorf, the Alfred Becker Gesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung, which initially produced machines for the textile industry.
49.
Major Alfred Becker was an industrialist and engineer with a knack for mechanical inventiveness.
50.
Alfred Becker demonstrated a remarkable talent for improvisation in building useful self-propelled guns and reconnaissance vehicles from wrecks and obsolete captured equipment.
51.
The great numbers of trucks and half-tracks Alfred Becker was able to refurbish provided much needed transport to the German army.