Tigers Triumphant at Villers-Bocage

Great read as usual Dale.

Those Tiger heavy tanks were no joke. When they first appeared on the battlefield, they quickly gained a feared reputation of being invulnerable and "death on treads" because of it's thick armor and large main gun. Thankfully they had many logistic and mechanical issues plus they were expensive to produce so only a bit less than 2000 were made (Tiger I and Tiger II) during the war.*
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* No, I'm not an armor geek ... one of my CGSC papers was regarding the evolution of armored warfare from it's advent during WWI through WWII.

Thank you my friend and brother-in-Christ MAJ Dale E. Wilson, Ph.D. for posting the perspective from warfarehistorynetwork.com

Hitler's Secret Weapon: Michael Wittmann WWII Tank Ace | Greatest Tank Battles | Timeline
Wittmann participated in many of the greatest tank battles of all time. He was a notorious figure, until he was finally defeated by Canadian tankers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFyKVJ_ZN-8

Images:
1. SS Lieutenant Michael Wittman was already a Tiger ace with at least 100 kills on the Eastern Front before Villers-Bocage. This photo was taken a week after the fighting at Villers-Bocage
2. SS Lieutenant Michael Wittmann spots the British armored vehicles and begins his attack by destroying two tanks (1) before turning left towards Villers-Bocage. Next, he and his crew destroy a long line of armored vehicles (2), including half-tracks and anti-tank guns. Wittmann’s crew next destroys Stuart tanks (3), a halftrack, and Cromwell tanks, including that of Major Arthur Carr (4). Wittmann fails to see the Cromwell of Capt. Dyas (5) before destroying the unarmed Sherman of Major Wells, and the Cromwell of Capt. Victory (6). The Sherman of Sgt. Lockwood shoots and damages Wittmann’s Tiger (7), then Wittmann turns back and destroys Dyas’ Cromwell (8). When Wittmann reaches the Tilly Junction his Tiger is disabled by Sgt. Bray’s 6-pounder gun (9). Wittmann exits his tank and leaves the battle on foot.
3. This photograph, taken several days after the battle at Villers-Bocage, shows Lieutenant Bill Crofton, left, wearing a German flight jacket with Iron Cross, chatting with his crewmen of the 4th County of London Yeomanry, 7th Armoured Division. Crofton was awarded the British Military Cross for his actions during the fighting around Villers-Bocage

Background from {[https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/tigers-triumphant-at-villers-bocage/]}
Tigers Triumphant at Villers-Bocage
During the fight for the French city of Caen, German tanks under the command of SS Lieutenant Michael Wittmann decimated a British Army unit at the small village.
By Michael E. Haskew
On D-day, June 6, 1944, the British 3rd Infantry Division was the first to land on Sword Beach. Its objective by the end of the day was the capture of the French city of Caen.
As the day wore on, however, that objective was to prove elusive.
One of the largest cities in Normandy, Caen was a communications hub and the center of a major road network. Located on the River Orne, the city was connected to the English Channel by the Caen Canal. Its seizure would anchor the Allied left flank and deny river and canal access to the defending Germans. As long as Caen remained in German hands, these barriers might present major obstacles to inland expansion of the D-Day beachhead.
General Bernard Law Montgomery, commander of Allied ground forces in Normandy, envisioned the capture of Caen within hours of British ground forces storming ashore at Sword, the easternmost of the five D-Day landing beaches. However, stiff German resistance from the veteran 21st Panzer Division, the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend, and the 716th Infantry Division had slowed progress toward Caen to a crawl and proved that Montgomery’s insistence that the city could be captured on D-Day had been wildly optimistic.
Montgomery’s staff then modified its plan for the early ground phase of the Normandy Campaign, dubbed Operation Perch, hoping to take advantage of this recent development. A strong pincer movement might outflank Panzer Lehr and envelop Caen, forcing its stubborn German defenders to abandon the city or potentially be surrounded. While the 51st (Highland) Infantry Division attacked in the east, the 7th Armored Division, the famed “Desert Rats,” which had found glory with Montgomery’s Eighth Army in North Africa, would swing southeastward and capture the town of Villers-Bocage, just over 27 kilometers southwest of Caen, along with nearby high ground identified on maps as Point 213.
On June 10, the reimagined Operation Perch got underway with the advance of the 7th Armored Division, while the 51st (Highland) Division stepped off the next day. Some early gains were made east of Caen, but a powerful counterattack from the 21st Panzer stopped that British thrust cold, pushing the Highlanders back to the banks of the Orne. However, the prospects for the western pincer’s success remained good.
As the 7th Armoured Division advanced, Major General Fritz Beyerlein, the capable commander of Panzer Lehr, recognized the predicament his division faced and ordered a heavy counterattack that bogged the western drive down near the town of Tilly-sur-Seulles. On the morning of June 12, Lieutenant General Miles Dempsey, commander of the British Second Army, traveled to 7th Armoured headquarters to meet with Major General Bobby Erskine, the division commander. Erskine suggested that Panzer Lehr might still be outflanked if 7th Armoured disengaged from the battle at Tilly-sur-Seulles and swiftly advanced toward Villers-Bocage from further west.
Hours later, the 22nd Armoured Brigade, the vanguard of the Desert Rats, was on the move toward Villers-Bocage with the tanks and armored cars of the 8th and 11th Hussars covering its flanks. As darkness fell, Brigadier Robert “Looney” Hinde, leading the brigade, called a halt to the advance after reaching the Caumont-Villers-Bocage Road, just five miles from his objective. Early on June 13, tanks of the 4th County of London Yeomanry and soldiers of Company A, 1st Battalion, The Rifle Brigade rolled into Villers-Bocage, scattering the few German troops they encountered as large numbers of French civilians emerged from hiding to welcome them.
Although his tankers were exhilarated by the rapid run to Villers-Bocage, Lieutenant Colonel Viscount Arthur Cranley, commanding the 4th County of London Yeomanry, was worried. German reconnaissance vehicles had been spotted, and enemy soldiers were seen making a hasty getaway in a staff car. Soon enough, the enemy would be coming back. Occupying the exposed position at Point 213 would invite a counterattack.
Cranley left four tanks of his regimental headquarters in Villers-Bocage before heading out to inspect A Squadron’s new posting. B Squadron took up positions west of Villers-Bocage and guarded the intersection along the road to the village of Caumont.
The leading elements of the 4th County of London Yeomanry and the accompanying infantry reached Point 213 just after 9 a.m. Most of the British armor and infantry halted along the road, waiting for orders to deploy and consolidate their hold on the high ground. More than two dozen tanks and halftracks lined the road along with numerous troop carriers. Sentries were posted, but their field of vision was limited due to the terrain and thick woods in the area.
Relatively few German armored formations were alerted on D-Day or in its immediate aftermath. But one of these, the 1st SS Panzer Corps, had headed toward the fighting early on June 7. Allied fighter bombers shot up the columns several times along the route, and the corps lost a significant number of armored vehicles. By the morning of June 13, SS Heavy Tank Battalion 101, its last uncommitted reserve advancing from Beauvais, had been reduced from an original strength of 45 tanks to fewer than 20.
FYI Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. COL Lisandro Murphy 1st Lt Padre Dave Poedel CWO3 (Join to see) SPC Michael Terrell LTC Greg Henning LTC Tom Jones LTC John Mohor LTC (Join to see) MAJ (Join to see) CPT Richard Trione CH (CPT) (Join to see) SFC George SmithSSG Michael NollSGT James Murphy 1SG Steven Imerman 1SG (Join to see) SPC Jon O. SPC John Williams

Thank you for this share of history.