Kapitänleutnant Gerhard Bigalk

U-751, still under the command of Kapitänleutnant Bigalk, left St. Nazaire, France on July 14, 1942 for her “lucky seventh” war patrol.  It was anything but.  Only three days out of port, on July 17, 1942 northwest of Cape Ortegal, Spain, a Whitley bomber of RAF Coastal Command’s 502nd Squadron, surprised the U-boat on the surface off northwest Spain and dropped six depth charges that, according to the aircrew, literally lifted the U-751 out of the water.  The Whitley doubled back for a second run and Kapitänleutnant Bigalk dived and avoided destruction.  After several hours he surfaced the boat only to find a Lancaster four-engine bomber of the 61st Squadron orbiting overhead.  The Lancaster bore in and dropped ten depth charges, while the U-751 fired back with all of her flak guns.  This massive attack succeeded and the U-boat slid stern first to the bottom.  The Lancaster’s crew reported that many of the doomed crew made it off the boat into the water, where they shook their fists at the British aircraft in an audacious gesture of final defiance.  None were ever seen again.  (Dönitz’s Crews: Germany’s U-Boat Sailors in World War II)

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At Kursk the mechanics were slowly losing the fight to fix all the damaged Tigers.   The 13th (Heavy) Company now had five operational Tigers on July 14, 1943.   The plan, part of Operation Roland to envelope elements of the Soviet 69th Army, was for the division to wait northeast of Komsomol’skiy State Farm at Hill 241.6 until Das Reich had seized the village of Pravorot’ (Правороть,) and then Leibstandarte would advance to Yamki farm.  To undertake a time-phased mission of this sort, the armored group of Leibstandarte was placed under the operational control of Das Reich.  However, division reconnaissance forces detected that the Soviets were massing to attack near Yamki farm in the east and Mikhaylovka (Михайловка) in the west to cut off the salient held by the division, and the 2nd SS Panzer Corps called off the attack of the Leibstandarte.

For July 14, the SS Panzer Grenadier Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler lost 21 killed in action, 114 wounded in action and 16 missing in action during the fighting at the Oktiabrskii Sovkhoz area and Storozhevoye Woods.  Soviet elements from the 53rd Motorized Rifle Brigade, the 31st  Tank Brigade, the 25th Tank Brigade and the 26th Tank Brigade suffered 144 killed in action, 467 wounded in action and 50 missing in action.  (Waffen-SS Tiger Crews at Kursk: The Men of SS Panzer Regiments 1, 2 & 3 in Operation Citadel, July 5-15, 1943)