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| Villers-Bocage |
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Compared to the really huge tank battles of WW2 such as Kursk and Seelow Heights , what happened at Villers-Bocage on 13 th June 1944 was a relatively minor affair, yet it has been the most discussed and written about tank action of that war. The one question everyone has asked is, “How could four tanks virtually destroy an Armoured Brigade?”. In reality, they had not, but the deeds that day of one man, Hauptsturmführer Michael Wittmann, had effectively wrecked the British hopes of taking Caen early in the Normandy Campaign. |
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In the twenty years following the end of the War, Villers-Bocage was largely forgotten in England , and with good reason. We wanted to remember just the victories, and many of the programmes dealing with the War shown on television repeated WW2 propaganda, rather than the objective truth. Once a new generation of historians came along, who had not served in the War and were prepared to consider what had really happened, then books began to appear that gave a much less biased version. |
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Possibly the best history of the Normandy Campaign is Max Hastings's “Overlord ”, first published in 1984 and still in print, and for a overview of the events at Villers-Bocage, his version is succinct and accurate. |
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The Battle |
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By 0900hrs on the 13 th June, a British column consisting of “A” Squadron County of London Yeomanry “The Sharpshooters”, “Sharpshooters' Regimental HQ, elements of 5 th Royal Horse Artillery and the 1 st Rifle Brigade had advanced through the town of Villers-Bocage as far as Point 213, a hill from which the road gently sloped back for about 1,200 metres to the eastern edge of the town. An Orders Group meeting had been called and officers and NCOs from the various units of 22 nd Armoured had gone forward to Point 213. However, about five hundred metres south-west of this road were six Tigers of 2. Komp. Schwere SS-Pz Abt. 101, commanded by the greatest tank “ace” ever, Michael Wittmann. They had arrived the previous evening and had camped between a farm called “La Ciderie” and another “Les Hauts Vents” on the old road, now a narrow track, to Caen . This runs about two hundred metres south of the RN175, the more modern road. Of the six tanks, only three were available for use. |
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From Wittmann's location he would have been aware of British tanks parked in the field south of Point 213 and that a long line of armoured half-tracks and other vehicles stretched back all the way to the town, and he must have asked himself how the British had failed to see his tanks two hundred metres away. It would seem that once the Rifle Brigade officers and senior NCOs had left in half-tracks for the “O” Group meeting at Point 213, the soldiers had got out of their vehicles and begun to make tea. Everyone had relaxed, even though German infantry were still known to be in the town. |
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Wittmann jumped into the nearest Tiger, which broke down after about twenty metres. He got into another and began the attack. What exactly happened next is the subject of much controversy, whether three or four Tigers were present and just where the attack began. It would seem that Wittmann left his other Tigers to engage the British tanks at Point 213 whilst he attacked the stationary column and tanks on the road to the town. His tank broke through the hedge bordering the RN175 and began to shoot up every vehicle along its route, half-tracks, Bren gun carriers and three Stuart tanks at the top of the town. Panic broke out, and the British Cromwell tanks in the town itself tried to reverse or turn round and drive back down the main street. Wittmann followed and destroyed most of them as he went. The German infantry who had been in the town all of this time now joined in and fired on the British vehicles and anyone on foot. Those British tanks that did fire at the Tiger saw their shells bounce off it. Wittmann travelled about halfway down the main street before being engaged by a Sherman Firefly. He then turned back up the street, possibly realising that by himself he could do no more, and being worried about his ammunition supply. |
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As he headed back towards Point 213 to join the fighting there, Sergt. Bray of the Rifle Brigade had managed to gather a few men around a six pounder anti-tank gun, and a shell from this hit the Tiger's running gear and immobilised it. Wittmann and his crew got away from their tank and headed north towards Orbois and the Headquarters of the Panzer Lehr Division. All this had happened in about ten minutes, resulting in Wittmann's destruction of perhaps thirteen tanks, nine half-tracks, four carriers and two anti-tank guns. Back at Point 213 confusion reigned. The remaining four troops of “A” Squadron, 4 th County of London Yeomanry were positioned in the fields and along the side of the RN715, with HQ in the house on the road junction at 213. This gave them a total of nine tanks, including two Fireflies. There were also some men from the Rifle Brigade, plus two scout cars and three half-tracks. A Tiger emerged from the hedge on the south side of the road and destroyed two of the tanks, then withdraw as its engine was overheating. Advance units of the 4 th Komp. Sch. Pz-Abt. 101 began to arrive and took prisoner men of the Rifle Brigade who had survived Wittmann's attack. The rest of Wittmann's 2 nd Komp. contained the British at Point 213 until further German units arrived to assist them. At about 13.00hrs the British began to surrender. They realised that they were now totally surrounded and had no hope of escape. |
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What had happened? |
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For the Germans a famous victory; for the British an ignominious defeat. Certainly, on the British side there had been some acts of great personal courage, but in general it was a defeat that should never have happened, and is rather indicative of the way the British had fought in Normandy Following Villers-Bocage General Dempsey replaced 7 th Armoured Division's commander, General Bucknall. Whilst the 7 th Armoured had performed well in the Western Desert , in Normandy it had showed lack of spirit, determination and discipline. Time and again in Normandy British tanks dashed ahead of their infantry. The Germans, with their experience of fighting the Russians, well understood that tanks without infantry protection could be easily destroyed with Panzer Fausts and other close quarter weapons, and that infantry found it difficult to press forward an attack without tank support. Possibly some of the senior British officers involved should have been court-martialled, but the atmosphere at the time needed to concentrate on success, rather than examine failure.
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| At Villers-Bocage all the worst aspects of the British Army in Normandy came into play: tanks that had left their infantry without support: tanks unsuitable for the tasks required of them: a town where no attempt had been made to clear out all of the enemy: no defensive positions had been established once the force had come to a halt; soldiers who made tea whilst an unseen enemy was two hundred metres from them, and, finally, and most disastrously, no sort of recognisance of the surrounding area appears to have been made. One week into the campaign and the British seem to have thought that it was all almost over. Certainly, sixty years on it is very easy to sit at one's desk and make remarks like this, but we should have done better, much better. | |||||||
The Battlefield Today |
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Until about 1997 very little had changed between the eastern edge of the town and Point 213, and pieces of shrapnel, bullets and other debris could be found in the ditches and under the hedges Now, an industrial estate has been built that covers the first four hundred metres of the site east of the town, and a motorway goes around its southern edge, but Point 213 is almost exactly the same as it was at the time of the battle. The house at the road junction has been rebuilt and altered, but the old Caen road and the area where Wittmann spent the night before the battle can easily be found. The town itself was subsequently heavily bombed by the British in am attempt to dislodge the Germans, and few of the buildings shown in wartime photos survived the War. There is a small group of houses on the south side of Rue Clemenceau where there is a slight bend in the road which are practically unchanged from 1944. They can easily be spotted in the photos. |
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Recommended Reading |
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| As I have said, there are numerous written accounts of Wittmann at Villers-Bocage. In my opinion, the best brief account is in Max Hastings's “Overlord” [paperback , Macmillan, 1999, ISBN 0 330 39012 0]. For the actual battle “Villers-Bocage Through The Lens”, by Daniel Taylor [ Battle of Britain International, ISBN 1 870067 07]. This features part of the excellent series of photographs taken by a German Army photographer just after the fighting. These are now held by the Bundesarchiv in Koblenz . There are also very good detailed maps and the author's placing of the photos in relation to these maps. The downside to the book is that it is rather a whitewash job of the British performance . |
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| “Michael Wittmann and the Tiger Commanders of the Leibstandarte” by Patrick Agte [J.J. Fedorowicz Publishing Inc., Canada , 1996 , ISBN 0 921991] is another example of Agte's densely researched work, drawing upon previously unpublished sources and photos. This is essential reading for anyone interested in the Normandy Campaign from the German side, and in particular the legends surrounding Wittmann's death. More photos from the Koblenz achives are reproduced that are not shown in Taylor 's book, and many of the people in these Koblenz photos are correctly identified. | |||||||
Visiting the Site |
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Get there soon before the French build over even more of it! Standing by the road near Point 213 it seems almost impossible that the British had failed to spot Wittmann's Tigers by 09.00hrs. Had there been no aerial recognisance of the proposed line of advance? There have been many attempts to downplay Wittmann's performance that day, but looking down the N175 from Point 213 towards Villers-Bocage I believe that no unbiased person can feel anything but amazement at his achievement. |
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