Actions in Normandy France
In April 1944 Wittmann was assigned to the SS Heavy Panzer division and command of its 2nd Company, now holding the rank of SS Obersturmfuhrer – roughly equivalent to a 1st Lieutenant in the American Army. On June 6 the allies landed at Normandy and the following day Wittmann’s unit was ordered to move there to counter the growing threat. It took five days for the Germans to reach the battle area. Wittmann was positioned near Villers-Bocage, with his unit more than 50% understrength.
On June 13 1944 Wittmann was taken by surprise by a British armored advance and engaged several British tanks alone before the rest of his unit rallied to his support. After destroying several British Firefly tanks (basically a Sherman tank with a more powerful anti-tank gun) Wittmann shifted to the offensive, supported by other German tanks as they entered the action. Wittmann and the other German tanks and armored vehicles, as well as German infantry armed with anti-tank rockets, destroyed more than a dozen British tanks, at least 13 other armored vehicles, and two anti-tank guns.
Wittmann’s Tiger was disabled, according to his own report, by an anti-tank gun in the center of the town of Villers-Bocage, leaving him out of the remainder of the action. British reports stated that the German tank withdrew after engaging a Firefly tank without success near the end of the action.
German radio reports, anxious to quell fears at home following the landing of the allies and their initial successes in Normandy, gave Wittmann personal credit for all of the British vehicles destroyed at Villers-Bocage, ignoring the contributions of the other German tanks involved in the fighting. Wittmann was ordered to record a message for radio broadcast in which he read from a prepared script a description of the battle written by SS propagandists. Doctored photographs exaggerated what was nonetheless a defeat for the British.
The propaganda broadcast was so successful that even the British believed Villers-Bocage to have been catastrophic evidence that the German tanks were vastly superior to their own. Wittmann’s actions at Villers-Bocage greatly enhanced his heroic reputation, in both the German homeland in the eyes of his opponents on the field.