Ambush at Villers-Bocage
13th June 1944: Michael Wittman's famous Tiger attack on a British armoured column has grown into many myths - a new book reconstructs the facts
As the British sought to find their way past Caen on the eastern flank of the Normandy bridgehead, they found themselves facing ever-strengthening Panzer forces, now arriving to bolster the German line. On 12th June they launched Operation Perch, an attempt to probe round to the west of Caen to find a gap in this line. On the 13th June as the British tanks and carrier-borne infantry passed through the small town of Villers-Bocage they passed within 50 yards of a force of German Tiger tanks, hidden in a sunken road parallel to their advance.
Michael Wittman was to give this account to German radio on the evening of the 13th
I had no time to assemble my company. Instead. I had to act quickly, as I had to assume that the enemy had already spotted me and would destroy me where I stood. I set off with one tank and passed the order to the others not to retreat a single step but to hold their ground. Drove up to the column, surprised the English as much as they had me.
I first knocked out two tanks from the right of the column, then one from the left and attacked the armoured troop carrier battalion in the middle of the armoured regiment. I drove toward the rear half of the column on the same road, knocking out every tank that came towards me as I went. The enemy was thrown into total confusion.
I then drove straight into the town of Villers, got to approximately the centre of town where I was hit by an anti-tankgun. My tank was disabled.
Without further ado I fired at and destroyed everything around me that I could reach; I had lost radio contact and was unable to summon my company. My tanks were out of sight.
I then decided to abandon my tank. We took all the weapons we could carry but didn’t destroy the tank as I believed that we could regain possession of it. Made my way to a division (Panzer-Lehr) about fifteen kilometres away. Had to dodge enemy tanks several times; could have taken them out but had no close-range anti-tank weapons, so with a heavy heart had to leave them be.
I reached the division and immediately reported to it and to Korps. Subsequent counter-attack destroyed the enemy. The bulk of the armoured regiment and a rifle battalion were destroyed.
Daniel Taylor on the German approach in Villers Bocage Operation Perch: The Complete Account:
How did the story of Michael Wittmann’s action at Villers-Bocage evolve? The most likely and simple answer is that, after the battle, an opportunity arose for German propaganda to exploit the British lack of knowledge of German losses in Villers. Due to their withdrawal, the British could not clearly establish how many enemy vehicles they had destroyed or what effect they had on the German forces diverted to counter Operation Perch.
For the German propaganda machine, this was an opportunity not to be missed. After handing over responsibility for the recapture ofVillers-Bocage to Hauptsturmfuhrer Mobius, Wittmann was whisked away to report to Obergruppenfiihrer Josef ‘Sepp’ Dietrich, the I. SS-Panzer-Korps commander, and a number of eager journalists.
It was they who made the most of the story. To this end, the radio interview recording of Wittmann’s description of his action in the battle was made on the evening of 13th June. Stories appeared in Das Schwarze Korps (the Panzer arm’s house magazine) and Wittmann was spirited back to Germany to be awarded the Swords to add to his Knight’s Cross with Oakleaves by Adolf Hitler personally. He was also promoted to Hauptsturmfuhrer, returning to Normandy to take over command ofthe Abteilung at the start of July.
The battle itself presented a clear opportunity to boost the morale of the nation at a time when the war situation was looking decidedly bleak. As presented, it was claimed that almost all the British vehicles had been destroyed by a single German tank commander which, from a journalistic point ofview, would also make excellent copy. The Germans had a number of panzer ‘aces’ who had run up high scores on the Eastern Front against very mixed opposition.
Perhaps some of the motivation behind the Villers story was that the propagandists thought that an overwhelming defeat of the best of the Allied forces by one man would add legitimacy to the ‘cricket scores’ run up against ‘inferior’ Soviet forces.
From another angle, Sepp Dietrich would have been mindful of the political ramifications of the story. He was aware the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS were effectively in competition for resources, so it was important for his branch of the armed forces that he shine a positive light on the exploits on his own fighting troops. The story would also be a further fillip to the already awesome reputation of the Tiger in the mind of the Allies.
This campaign, waged by the Propaganda Ministry, was a veritable success. Instead of being recorded as a battle with no clear winner, both sides came out believing that the Germans were the victors of the battle. The awesome reputation of the Tiger was enhanced still further; a hero of the Panzer arm was confirmed, and Allied tank crews made even more wary every time they saw a long gun barrel protruding out of cover. This is all a perfectly legitimate course of action under wartime conditions - and the Allies proved equally adept at manipulating news stories so that they provided the best perception of their own actions.
The myth has been further expanded ever since. Only a very thorough analysis of all the available witness accounts, piecing together the action over the course of several years and comparing them against the many contemporary photographs, has it been possible for Taylor to build a reliable account of what happened, in what sequence.
This picture was discovered at an early stage of the research into this work. It was featured in an article about Villers-Bocage in the German forces’ magazine Die Wehrmacht published in July/August 1944 and purports to show a similar scene to that of the Loyd carrier [shown immediately above].
Yet the fact that track marks have begun to appear on the road and that some of the trees seem to have lost their leaves, would imply that it was taken at a later date. However, there are a number of inconsistencies that do not quite fit in with the other photographs.
The Loyd carriers are now on both sides of the road whereas in other shots the northern side of the road is devoid of vehicles. Also there should, by rights, be a water tower over to the left behind the trees, which themselves were thicker on that side of the road than on the other. Other aspects of the image also just did not look right: the two 6-pdr guns facing in exactly opposite directions; three tracks scored in the road instead of two and the Wespe ammunition carrier drawn not quite to the same scale.
It was then that the penny dropped. What the developer has done is to montage two pictures together, one looking up the road and one looking down, and then applied another photograph of a vehicle in the middle to hide the join. During the process he has over-exposed some of the trees so that they do not look too alike.
The desired effect was to embellish the scale of the destruction in order to enhance the idea of a crushing German victory, a task accomplished with great skill. The caption reads: ‘Here ended an English armoured breakthrough on the road south-west of Caen!'
This chart represents a German heavy tank battalion based on the strength return of schwere SS-Panzer-Abteilung 101 of I. SS- Panzer-Korps on May 30,1944. Although this is the nominal compliment, the majority of the battalion, including the whole of 3. Kompanie, had not reached the battlefront in time to take part in the fighting at Villers-Bocage. Key: Nachrichtenzug - Signals Platoon, Sanitatsstaffel - Medical Echelon, Pionierzug - Pioneer Platoon, Aufklarungszug - Armoured Reconnaissance Platoon, Scoutzug - Scout Platoon, Fliegerabwehrzug - Anti-aircraft Platoon, Bergezug - Recovery Platoon, Waffenmeisterei Armour Artificer Platoon. Also part of the establishment (though not shown) is the Workshop Platoon comprised of two Kubelwagen, seventeen 2-ton trucks, one half-track crane, one wheeled crane and one mobile gantry.
Daniel Taylors’ remarkably clear exposition of the events of 13th June includes many images - each with a detailed interpretation. The personal accounts of the individuals involved are used to build a blow-by-blow story. This is not just a reconstruction of one action but a full portrayal of what the British were attempting - the story of how their armoured and infantry were deployed and working together. Villers Bocage Operation Perch: The Complete Account gives a graphic insight into the nature of such operations in Normandy.
© Daniel Taylor 2023, 'Villers Bocage Operation Perch: The Complete Account'. Reproduced courtesy of Pen & Sword Publishers Ltd
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