It’s the early morning of June 13th, 1944,
in the French town of Villers-Bocage, south of Normandy.
Civilians line the town streets, celebrating the arrival of the British soldiers.
They hail them as liberators, gifting the rank-and-file men fresh produce in gratitude.
It’s a welcoming and uplifting sight.
But little do the people know the soldiers are performing a flanking maneuver behind enemy lines.
The town is far from safe.
Just outside the town, hidden in the bushes lining the many fields a beast stalks its prey.
A Tiger tank of the 2nd Company of the 101st SS Heavy Panzer Battalion.
Standing atop its cupola is the most decorated German Panzer ace in history;
Lieutenant Michael Wittmann.
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Wittmann looks on at the line of British armor and infantry:
Half-tracks, Cromwells, Fireflies, and towed artillery all moving up the highway.
They’re taking position at a hill just beyond the town.
Their advance had caught him completely by surprise and thoroughly unprepared.
His 15-tank company is down to 12 tanks
and they’ve had so many mechanical problems only 2 are ready for immediate combat,
but Wittmann feels his hands are tied.
The British must have already seen him, and if they haven’t it is but a matter of time.
Weighing his options he retreats inside the Tiger’s turret and makes a very simple order:
“Charge.”
The Tiger roars to life, bursting out of the bushes and racing towards the British forces.
By sheer chance an NCO in a half-track witnesses the pouncing Tiger and shouts over the radio
"For Christ's sake get a move on! There's a Tiger running alongside us fifty yards away!”
But it’s too late, the Tiger crashes into the scene, emerging onto the highway behind the stationed troops.
Wittmann’s machine turns its turret and immediately fires upon a parked Cromwell tank,
destroying it with a single devastating hit from its mighty gun.
The British panic and run every which way.
A Sherman Firefly starts to turn towards Wittmann,
it’s the only machine present capable of posing a danger to the German heavy tank,
but it’s facing the completely wrong way,
Wittmann’s expert loader is quicker than that vehicle can ever hope to turn.
A muzzle flash lights up the highway and the 88mm shell pierces the side of the Firefly,
in the blink of an eye it's reduced to a piece of flaming scrap blocking the highway.
The second operational Tiger arrives mere moments later from the opposite end of the hill, spreading further panic.
The British forces are in total disarray as this new adversary opens up on the field of parked war-machines.
Meanwhile Wittmann decides to take the fight into town leaving the hill to his ally.
The Tiger turns away from the ongoing battle and drives down the road towards Villers-Bocage.
Half-tracks line the road, abandoned by their crews the moment the battle started.
Wittmann systematically destroys them,
the Tiger unleashing devastation with machine gun and high explosive shells,
leaving behind a column of flames and mangled debris.
Barreling down now towards the town he sees three Mk V Stuart tanks blocking his path.
To his surprise they don’t run and instead the lead Stuart turns to block the road
as the rest fire at Wittmann with shells from their tiny guns.
They bounce off Wittmann and his crew without any effect.
In response the Tiger crew fires at the lead Stuart without hesitation, swiftly destroying it.
The Tiger’s sights then turn to the left Stuart, and it too is dealt with in a single brutal shot from the mighty 88,
the ensuing explosion fires the little tank’s turret sky-high. The third and last fares much the same.
The Tiger then rams the blocking Stuart off the road and carries his rampage into town.
He sees a half-track and swiftly takes it out with a High Explosive shell.
Immediately upon entering he spots a Cromwell backing away between the houses to the left.
Wittmann gives the command and the gunner fires at it from point-blank range.
They keep moving and a second Cromwell is spotted up ahead.
It fires and its 75mm shell ricochets off the German armor with a deafening clang.
Desperate, the crew of the Cromwell fires a smoke canister,
but it flies past overhead as the unstoppable Tiger turns its 88mm weapon upon them.
In a flash the Tiger shoots the Cromwell, piercing it with ease and setting off a fire.
Somehow the crew members survive the impact and hastily stagger out of the machine.
Wittmann orders to fire the machinegun upon the survivors who had taken cover behind their wrecked machine.
A third Cromwell commanded by Captain Pat Dyas quickly flees the scene,
his gunner hadn’t returned when the chaos broke so he’s unable to fire,
so he orders his tank into a farm’s garden and takes cover behind a barn.
Wittmann’s Tiger rolls past his position, miraculously failing to spot him.
As soon as it rolls past Dyas’ gunner emerges from his cover and rejoins the crew.
Now fully operational, Dyas and his crew bravely give chase.
Meanwhile Wittmann comes across two Observation Post tanks parked on the side of the road,
an unarmed Sherman and yet another Cromwell.
He swiftly destroys them both and keeps moving down the road
when a Sherman Firefly peeks around the corner at the end of the town.
It fires and the Firefly’s shell slams against the armor of the Tiger.
Somehow it doesn’t pierce, and the Tiger crew desperately attempt to turn the vehicle’s heavy turret.
The Firefly fires three more times, but none manage to penetrate.
The Tiger fires in haste and it, too, misses its mark, it strikes the side of the building
and the entire corner collapses down onto the Firefly below.
Aware now of how far he’s gone Wittmann decides it’s time to get out of there,
he orders the tank around and they retreat back from where they came.
At the same time Dyas is coming down the road with his Cromwell,
believing he’s about to surprise the Tiger from behind,
but his hopes turn to horror when through the heavy smoke of burning machines
he sees the Tiger emerge staring straight towards him.
Dyas orders: “Shoot!”
and the gunner fires at the enemy head on, but the Cromwell stands no chance.
The shell ricochets and the Tiger rolls ominously to a halt.
Dyas’ crew manage to fire one more time, but its just as useless,
the Tiger returns fire its shell goes straight through the Cromwell’s turret, killing the gunner and loader.
Dyas on the opposite side of the turret miraculously survives
and hurriedly crawls out of the machine along with the driver.
Wittmann then orders his tank off the road hoping to avoid any further encounters and retreat for once.
They burst through the fences as they make their way behind the home.
Back at the highway a British anti-tank crew runs out of cover.
They scour the line of wrecked half-tracks and find one of the towed anti-tank weapons still serviceable.
They aim it towards the town waiting for the German war machine to return.
Believing that he had already bypassed any survivors
Wittmann orders his tank back onto the highway to rejoin his squadron up at the hill,
inadvertently wandering right into the crosshairs of the British.
In a display of incredible discipline, the gunners don’t fire right away
and they take a handful of seconds to carefully aim for the tracks.
In a flash the 6 pounder shell flies across the road
and slams straight into the Tiger’s sprocket wheel, immobilizing it.
The crew of the anti-tank gun instantly bolts for cover as the Tiger’s turret starts to turn.
Inside Wittmann and his crew feel a bang and then a sudden stop as their running gear comes undone.
They hurriedly scan the area for the enemy, but they’re long gone.
Wittmann stays in place for twenty long minutes, turning the turret around and firing at anything that seems to move,
but now he knows the situation is untenable and he orders the crew to bail out.
They jump out of their tank to no resistance,
only surrounded by the distant sounds of battle taking place in the hill ahead.
All together, the crew flee into the countryside.
The battle would drag on for a whole day, with the British forces surrounded on the hill facing the brunt of it.
More German units joined the fray, including one led by Wittmann himself,
The British attempted in vain to relieve the hill, they fought valiantly, performing much better once reorganized,
but their position behind enemy lines and the initial surprise attack left them vulnerable.
In the end the allied forces would retreat back to their proper lines
and the surviving soldiers on the hill were taken prisoner.
Michael Wittman would be promoted to Hauptsturmführer and awarded swords to his Knight’s Cross.
The tale would be exaggerated by the German propaganda machine, and he became a household name.
We try to pull together a narrative for these events that have been drawn from several sources
but many accounts can fleet no doubt there are errors in our film today.
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