The Villers-Bocade Battles

[LAH 1 SS]

TIGER 222 TOWING 231



TIGER 231


TIGER 232


Now after all of that Tiger 234 was never commanded by Wittmann (and to date has not been postively identified). Wittmann actually commanded Tiger 231 briefly before taking over Tiger 212 hence the photo of Tiger 222 towing Tiger 231 and why there is no action report of Tiger 222 taking part in the inital battle for VB. Here is a still taken of Wittmann in taken in Tiger 231 just after VB and for his awards ceremony



And it was this tiger that was wrongly identified initially as being the tiger that he went into VB with

Credit given to the appropriate web sites and people for the pictures

[LAH 1 SS]

And lastly this is one of the tiger's that took part in the battle for VB but has not been identified yet however it is a 1st Co Tiger as can be clearly identified by the shwere rhomboid on the front glacis plate

[Hagen]

I've got a small bit here from Senior SS Sergeant Werner Wendt. Wendt was a Tiger commander in the first company, and this is from the battle in the town itself;

"There was fire from all sides. We were battling anti-tank guns and infantry. Even today I can still picture SS Second-Lieutenant Lucasius as he was knocked out by close range weapons. He bailed out. His burns looked frightening."

Source; Steel Inferno, 1 SS Panzer Corps In Normandy, Michael Reynolds

[LAH 1 SS]

Now from the Germans who were actually there perspective....

From Michael Wittmann, Volume II by Patrick Agte, Stackpole Military books.

First hand account from SS-Rottenführer Lau (a crew member from one of the Tigers involved):

"It was almost morning and the naval artilery fire subsided somewhat. I, the gunner was standing watch in the open turret hatch. All of a sudden- it was between 5 and 7 A.M.- Obersturmführer Wittmann, who had leapt onto the first of our tanks sitting in the sunken road, grasped me by the shoulder and said something about the Tommies. As he spoke, he gestured with his hand toward the road (Villers-Bocade-Caen), which was almost immpossible to see from our position through the bushs. I slid onto the gunners seat and he onto the tank commanders seat. The driver had fired up the engine. Headsets and throat microphones were put on quickly and we backed out of the defile. Unterscharführer Stief was sleeping at the loaders position, was instructed by Wittmann to alert and brief the remaining tanks. Meanwhile we drove towards the main road along a field road. We had gone about 20 meters by the time the driver and I were able to explain to Wittmann that our motor was defective. Apparently he had already deduced this from the sound of the engine. He leapt out of our tank and climbed aboard the tank of Unterscharführer Sowa, which by then had driven out of the defile."

So we can see here that Wittmann had to switch from 1 Tiger tank to another, I beleave the Tiger he switched to was Tiger 212. And the Tiger that had "engine problems" was Tiger 234 with Herbert Steif in command of that specific troubled tank.



Wittmanns' Company consisted of

Tiger 234 commanded by Herbert Steif at first, then by Wittmann himself, for a minute or two at least......

Tiger 212 commanded by Sawa, then Wittmann once he realized the engine problems of his first Tiger pick, Tiger 234.
Now one question I do have is what happened to Sowa, did he change places with tank 234 and Steif? Or maybe he did'nt comand another Tiger that day....??

Tiger 211 was commanded by Obersturmführer Jürgen Wessel

Tiger 221 was commanded by Untersturmführer Geoge Hantusch

Tiger 223 was commanded by Oberscharfürher Jürgen Brandt


Cheers, thoughts and contradictions fellow members?

Tom

TRDG these commander's are correct but the problem is the given date for these commander's is the 6/6/44 well before the battle for VB. We need to take into account the losses of the tiger tank's on the march to Normandy and the habitual commander hopping amongst the crews. Great starting point mate

[TRDG]

So at least it seems some of this is right at a certain point in time. As it is now if we go by my previous posts, tank 234 and 212 should be "right", because they are commented on by the crew members that were there and running each Tiger on the day of the Villers battle. So 211, 221 and 223 might just be still in question maybe.

Lets see here, maybe this will ring a bell for others with some further info about these commanders.

Tiger 211 with Obersturmführer Jürgen Wessel, who was a combat vet from the Infrantry side in the Eastern front but had no experience prior to the Villers battles.

Tiger 234 with Unterscharfüher Herbert Steif who also served in the Eastern front as well as a tank commander earlier in the year before this battle took place, and with Wittmann.

Tiger 221 with Untersturmführer Geoge Hantusch who was also located in the Eastern front in 1941. From there he entered a mechanical engineering SS automotive school before becoming a Tiger commander.

Tiger 223 with Oberscharfürher Jürgen Brandt a comabt vet that joined the Tiger Battalion to be the Commander of the recon platoon. But ended up in command of a Tiger with some impressive kills to his credit in his career of 57 kills.

Tiger 212 with unterscharführer Sowa, no information that I know of at this time.

For the attack on point 213 the information I have is

Zug 1. Tiger 211* and 234

Zug 2. Tiger 221* and 223

* designated as the Zug Commander

Some of this is from research done in a "game" book, but it does seem to coinside to other sources of information on certain points.

Then the basic structure of the 101, Schwere SS Panzerrabteilung is, from what I know will be on the next post shortly.

Cheers

"Tiger" (LOL) Tom

[TRDG]

101. Schwere SS Battalion

HQ - Tiger 007, Tiger 008 and Tiger 009, Commanded by Ostubaf von Westernhagen.

1. Kompanie

Tiger 105 and Tiger 104 "HQ", commanded by Hstuf Möbius.

1. Zug
Tiger 111, Tiger 112, Tiger 113 and Tiger 114, commanded by Ostuf Philipsen.

2. Zug
Tiger 121, Tiger 122, Tiger 123 and Tiger 124, commanded by Ustuf Stamm.

3. Zug
Tiger 131, Tiger 132, Tiger 133 and Tiger 134, commanded by Ustuf Hahn

2. Kompanie

1. Zug
Tiger 211, Tiger 212, Tiger 213 and Tiger 214, Ostuf Wessel Commanding

2. Zug
Tiger 221, Tiger 222, Tiger 223 and Tiger 224, commanded by Ustuf Hantusch

3. Zug
Tiger 231, Tiger 232, Tiger 233 and Tiger 234, commanded by OJk Belbe

3. Kompamie

HQ Tiger 305 and Tiger 304, commanded by Ostuf Raasch

1. Zug
Tiger 311, Tiger 312, Tiger 313 and Tiger 314, commanded by Ustaf Günther

2. Zug
Tiger 321, Tiger 322, Tiger 323 and Tiger 324, commanded by Ustuf Görgens

3. Zug
Tiger 331, Tiger 332, Tiger 333 and Tiger 324, commanded by Ustuf Amselgruber.

4 Kompanie

Auflarungszug (half-tracks) commanded by Hscha Benno Poetschlalt.

Erkundungszug (schwimmwewagon recon I think??) commanded by Ustuf Rolf Henniges

Flakzug (AA half-tracks) commanded by Uscha Kurt Fichert.

Pionierzug (Pioneer with motorized transportation) commanded by OJK Walter Brauer.

Cheers, also from a certain game I play, lokks fairly accurate as to what it was SUPPOSED TO HAVE on paper anyways.

Time for work guys, back tonight.

Tom

[LAH 1 SS]

Agte's Michael Wittman and the Tiger Commanders of LAH volume one page 381 has the full layout and order of battle of 101 ss as of the 6/6/44. Alot of what is written is correct however, the 4th platoon was commmanded by Ostuf Spitz and the squad leader was Oscha Klett. The pioneer platoon was commanded by ST. O. Jk Brauer. The armoured reconnaissance platoon was commanded by Hscha Poetschalk. The scout platoon by Ustuf Henniges. The AA platoon by Ustuf Fichert. The company commander of the workshop company is Ostuf Klein the platton commander was Ustuf Glaser. The recovery platoon and armour-artificer platoon was Ustuf Wichert. hope this helps

[TRDG]

Thanks LAH, I'll have to dig up the first volume of Wittmann by Agte, I seemed to have misplaced it right now.

By trying to get the actual Tiger numbers and some of the commanders, maybe we can go over each Tiger that might be pictured, being damaged, destroyed or whatever.... So we can maybe narrow down what was where and in what actula condition. My focus now is the point 213 battle and was there 3, or 4 Tigers in that specific attack. So we know that Tiger 234 seemed to have an engine problem and was "left" by Wittmann. So did it A. get repaired VERY QUICKLY to take part in the Point 213 battle, B. It managed to make it to the battle, engine problems and all, or it just did'nt take part in the point 213 attack at all, so only 3 Tigers ( 211, 221 and 223) took part.
Then what specific Tigers actually took part in the 3rd battle (the final one inside the town of Villers in the end before the British pulled out). I see a couple "named" in some pics, but are they accurate or more like what you posted before about what people think and post, compared to what the real facts are.

Cheers, thanks for the interest (posts pics and info!!) guys, and did you see any other problems in the 101st list I posted from the game book LAH?

Tom

[LAH 1 SS]

No TRDG the list was ok from what i read mate.

The tigers of the second company had taken up position 1.5 km east of VB on the 13/6/44 as for the number of tanks at the point 213 i have no concrete evidence of the number of tigers that took part in the specific battle.

As for the tigers in the actual battle for VB (just after Wittmanns run through VB) they have been correctly indentified as being first company tigers under Mobius and can be backed up by Agte in his book

I am not quite sure but i think Agte has wrongly identified tiger 234. Tiger 234 should actually be tiger 231. My resoning being there is no photographic evidence of tiger 234 in existence to date and the only photo's of the battle for VB shows tiger 231 being towed by tiger 222 (see posted photos) down the national highway. I am going to send an email to a mate to see if this is correct however, here is a a passage from the book with the ? wrong identified tiger tank mentioned.

I quote from Agte

'After Wittman had roared off in Unter Sowa's tank, Rot Lau (who was the gunner for tiger 234 (?231) at the time they arrived at a point south of n 175 in the feild) remained in his tiger just below hill 213 at the national highway."

He goes on to describe the british tanks rolling past without a commander for his vehicle. He then says and i quote

" Unter Sowa was sitting in the middle of the feild where Wittman had left him. I shouted to him- 'Kurt come here i have no commander'. With Unter Sowa in command we drove on to the highway (n175). The left side of the road was one pile of wreckage which was obscured by smoke from burning vehicles".

He goes on to comment about destroying to Cromwell tanks in the direction of Caen and then says and i quote

"We pulled back from the highway in th direction of the sunken road, in order to obtain a better veiw while standing guard and to shut down the over heated engine"

So to answer the question no the vehicle was not fully repaired during the night hence why Wittmann abonded it as it had been overheating on the travel to n175 and had to stop numerous times during the march and no it did not fully take part in the battle

[TRDG]

Thank you very much for the posts LAH, now lets take it from the top here, starting with Wittmanns first enemy contact.

1. Wittmann has to go through 2 Tigers before he gets into action on the road leading to Villers, correct so far?

2. The actual Tiger he ended up with may be up for debate (either 231 or 234?) maybe, but he did in fact head out on his own with 1 Tiger E and first met up with 2 Cromwells on the road which he put out of action as the first enemy contact, does that sound about right as well?

Cheers, step by step is the way to go here for each battle in Villers-Bocade, or so I hope anyways!!

Tom