Battle of Villers-Bocage

The Battle of Villers-Bocage was a battle which took place during World War II, on June 13, 1944, seven days after the Allied forces had landed on the Normandy beaches on D-Day. It was fought between one German Tiger I tank of the 101st SS Heavy Panzer Battalion and the British 22nd Armoured Brigade (7th Armoured Division), during Operation Overlord, which was the Allied Normandy Campaign. Although the Wehrmacht was losing ground, the Battle of Villers-Bocage was a German victory in which one German commander with only one Tiger tank destroyed 20 British armored vehicles.

The Battle of Villers-Bocage began when the British commander, General Bernard Montgomery, launched a pincer movement to capture the city of Caen, which was one of the main Allied objective of D-Day. The eastern jaw of the pincers consisted of 51st Infantry Division (I Corps) and the 4th Armored Brigade; while the western jaw was formed by the XXX Corps, whose forward element was the 22nd Armoured Brigade of 7th Armoured Division. The British 7th Armored Division was ordered to circle around the Panzer Lehr Division, to launch a surprise attack on their rear, and to take the high grounds near the town of Villers-Bocage, which was situated in the 7th Armored Division’s path, lying at a road intersection which led in a northeastward direction towards Caen. However, the British unexpectedly ran into a lethal spearhead element of the 101 SS Heavy Panzer Battalion (of 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler): it was Tiger I, whose commander was Micahel Whittmann, a tank ace.

The Battle of Villers-Bocage broke out when the British 22nd Armoured Brigade advanced into the the French town of Villers-Bocage. But the British did not know that the 2nd Company of the 101st SS-Panzer Battalion, under the command of SS-Obersturmführer Michael Wittmann, had moved in during the night to take positions at point 213, which was near the crossroads at Villers-Bocage. Then when the German tank ace saw the enemy move, he attacked the British tanks from the main road that led to Villers-Bocage. In the next fifteen minutes, Wittmann, a battle-hardened German officer, destroyed ten British tanks, six anti-tank guns, and a dozen or more half-tracks and Universal carriers vehicles with only one Tiger tank.

As Wittmann drove down the road which led from Villers-Bocage, the left track of his tank got hit by a 6-pdr shell. Not being able to further continue, he stopped on the street in front of the Huet-Godefroy store. Wittmann and the rest of the crew abandoned the tank and left the area on foot. Later on the day, they joined the headquarters of the Panzer Lehr Division, miles away. Later Michael Wittmann would be promoted to Hauptsturmführer and awarded Swords to his Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross.

Down below, Hauptsturmführer Michael Wittmann sitting on the turret of a Tiger I tank, which leads a group of armored vehicles of the 101st SS Heavy Panzer Battalion.