Panzer Gunner

From My Native Canada to the German Ostfront and Back. In Action with 25th Panzer Regiment, 7th Panzer Division 1944-45

By: Bruno Friesen

Narrated by: David de Vries

Length: 8 hrs and 31 mins

Publisher's summary

Panzer Gunner is a unique memoir of a Canadian serving in a German armored division. Bruno Friesen explains what it was like to fight in a tank on the Eastern Front and provides details on the battlefield performance of the Panzer IV tank. Six months before World War II erupted in 1939, Bruno Friesen was sent to Germany by his father in hopes of a better life. Friesen was drafted into the Wehrmacht three years later and ended up in the 7th Panzer Division. Serving as a gunner in a Panzer IV tank and then a Jagdpanzer IV tank destroyer, Friesen experienced intense combat against the Soviets in Romania, Lithuania, and West Prussia.

©2007 Bruno Friesen (P)2018 Tantor

Interesting book

At times somewhat Technical in details. In addition to Active Service, covers sme pre and post war details.
Overall, enjoyed it

strangest WW2 book you will ever read.

the only WW2 book that talks about farts. the author does not alude to any suffering, fear, or trauma. if one didn't know better , you would think he was playing a game and not fighting on the Eastern front. a strange book.

Panzer Gunner

Good read but a little too technical and not enough personal stories for me. Great research book for students of the Panzer IV.

Great reading. Inside story of Panzer Gunner.

I loved it! Not often do you get the inside look at a Panzer Mk IV as well as a Jagpanzer V.

Not something you hear everyday!

This book gives the listener amazing insight into what an allied born individual has to go through while fighting for the enemy side and coming back to “face the music”. Really amazing to listen to someone who had this unique experience.

Great book

Refreshing.. A little different than usual, a bit of an oddity but very good, great details of panzer and jagdpanzers. Being told by a relaxed westerner is fun.

Disappointed

When I got this audio book, I was expecting a memoir from a German-Canadian that had served as a gunner in a Panzer and talk about hit combat and his memories of it. What I got seemed more like historical research about German tanks than anything else.

I disliked when it went "In this chapter..." or talked about statics or using other books as references to talk about the Panzer IV or Jadpanzer. There seemed to very little information about his service and almost no talk about his fellow comrades that he must have been close to especially in a 5 man crew.

The narrator at times sounds like he inhales before talking which can get take you away and he seems to be talking a mile a minute which made it hard to comprehend or recall anything about this book.

I tried to listen through the entire thing twice but I could not find myself able to finish it.

Turning a war novel into an English Lit Project

Two and half hours in and the most exciting thing to happen is a whorehouse recap. Too much about how someone else might tell the story. Not like "their version" but comparing literary styles.

Yep... returning this one.

Measurements of a jagdpanzer

if you are looking for an exciting war story of tank combat look elsewhere. The book spends way too much time of the measurements of a Panzer 4 and Jadgpanzer 4. The book had about 3 chapters of combat. The title is misleading as the Panzer gunner only explained 3 engagements he was involved in. I would suggest reading Love and War: An American Volunteer in the Soviet Red Army - Book 1: 1941-1943 (Love and War: An American Volunteer in the Soviet Red Army)

Snooze alert!

The narrator dies his best to engage you, but not even RC Bray could save this... Boring!