This text originates from a group conversation on the hometown. It contains the best explanation (or theory if you will) why Wittmann probably did NOT use 222 at Villers-Bocage. I have chosen NOT to edit the text, but simply put it up as if you are reading the “thread”, to leave the text as genuine as possible.
JSD, June 27th 2001
The following question was posted:
“Hello All,
I am currently in the process of modeling Wittmann’s Tiger at Villers-Bocage. However, there is some confusion. The common belief is that he was in Tiger 222 (Kurt Sowa’s Tiger), however, the web author at panzermodeler.com says that a picture of this tank (222) towing Tiger 231 that day after Villers-Bocage (that would be June 14) disproves its placement at the battle (or at least it wasn’t Wittmann’s tank.
Here is my question, I have a copy of this photo and was interested in: a). How did anyone identify this tank as 222? and b). How is the date confirmed as June 14, 1944?
If you know what I am talking about or have any other reference material that could be useful (like Kurt Sowa’s combat diary for example!) please respond.”
When I read this post, I replied to the post and contacted Yann Jouault, who was able to explain his theory. In my honest opinion this is the most reliable theory on the Villers-Bocage story. As usual, although a very busy man, Yann Jouault answered the same day telling me he’d explain in a follow-up post, he later headlined “The Villers-Bocage Headache”.
The ‘Villers-Bocage Headache’
Yann Jouault
Hi,
Jules is too kind with me but I don’t consider myself to be an authority on this subject (not on any other subject for that matter !).
However, it’s true that I’ve devoted quite a lot of time and effort to this action and my own research now stretches over a period of 10 years or so…
This particular research also taught me 2 things mainly : patience and humility, as studying History is not an ‘exact science’.
Now it’s also correct that I was the one who identified the Tiger towing ‘231’ as ‘222’.
As I was discussing this action on Missing Links last year with others, I was prompted to check my refs once again and came to this conclusion after I spent some time scrutinizing the 3 pictures that show these 2 Tigers near V-B.
It has to be noted that this towing Tiger has always been miscaptioned before, rather inexplicably. Mind you, I too failed to identify it for several years so I’m not really in a position to criticize anyone here…
Anyway, to realize it’s ‘222’, you need to have access to the afore mentioned pics plus several others covering SS101/2.Kp.
The best sources to date re M. Wittmann and the LAH Tigers are first and foremost ‘MW and the Tiger Commanders of the LAH’ by Patrick Agte; I have the original German Edition published by DVG as well as the French Edition by Heimdal. An English Ed. also exists but sadly, just like the French one, it’s been deleted for a couple of years now.
Next is ‘Tigers in Combat II’ by Wolfgang Schneider published by Federowicz.
Both books are quite pricey but the new album by Jean Restayn (Histoire & Collections in Paris) ‘Tigers on the Western Front’ is quite a good reference though not as complete as the 2 above…It’s also a lot cheaper ! (excellent repros but there are several miscaptioned shots in it so beware).
Now the best source for the V-B affair is definitely ‘Villers-Bocage Through The Lens’ by Daniel Taylor (After The Battle Publishing). ALL the known shots that were taken by the Germans one day after the battle occurred are there and it really contains a wealth of info pertaining to his battle).
Another good source, though a bit dated, is ‘Tigres Au Combat’ by Henri Marie, a former mayor of V-B, which was published by Heimdal in 1993; again, it’s now deleted unfortunately !
There are other books and mags out there that describe this action too like Gary’s Simpson’s ‘Tiger Ace (Schiffer), ‘Panzers in Normandy Then & Now’ by Eric Lefèvre (ATB), ’12.SS Panzer-Division’ by G. Bernage and Hubert Meyer (Heimdal), issues of ’39/45′ and ‘Militaria’ mags etc etc…But none of them is as comprehensive or some of them are either fairly dated or sometimes simply inaccurate on this topic !!
But let’s get back to my analysis : as I said, only 3 shots showing ‘222’ towing ‘231’ existb (D.Taylor’s book has all 3 !). I hope you can get them yourself.
First, it’s obvious the Tiger in the foreground is a 2.Kp., just like ‘231’, as it bears the white SS101 emblem (Crossed Keys in a shield with Oakleaves) on the RIGHT HAND SIDE of the bow, as opposed to the 1. and 3.Kompanien which had it on the LEFT hand side as you no doubt know.
Also, the first digit, a ‘2’, can be clearly seen on the LHS of the turret.
Next, one of the shots also reveals that the THIRD digit is a ‘2’ too, although it’s partly concealed by the standing CO in front of it.
So far we have : ‘2…2’, right ?
This is where the fun begins; though the last shot in the sequence makes it difficult to ascertain at first, when you look hard in the portion between the standing Officer is (wearing a motorcyclist coat) and the driver’s head where some of the turret LHS can be seen, you can make just make out a second white HORIZONTAL outline (past the first digit) under the CO’s coat, so where the second digit is. It’s way too WIDE to be the bottom part of a ‘1’ digit and at this stage, could be a ‘2’ or a ‘3’, so it could be ‘222’ or even ‘232’ !
Then the only option left was for me to make comparisons. I was lucky in a sense that head o shots of ‘232’ and ‘212’ are available though the latter is somewhat murky as this vehicle (‘212’) can only be seen in a distance behind ‘211’ in a shot taken in June 7 near Morgny as the 2.Kp. was heading towards the Normandy Front.
The picture of ‘232’ clearly indicates it is NOT the same vehicle as the ‘towing Tiger’ in question, purely because it bears a DIFFERENT style of emblem, i.e. it has the SS101 insignia painted in a cut out square patch, whereas ‘222’ had it painted DIRECTLY onto the Zimmerit coat ! (Further investigation on my behalf seemed to prove the 2nd Platoon Tigers of the SS101/2.Kp. had this special feature (at least this is true for ‘221’, ‘222’ and ‘223’ – no known head on shots of ‘224’ has surfaced yet, but it seems to be a 2.Kp. trait nonetheless); Staff vehicles – ‘205’ and ‘204’ – plus 1st Platoon and 3rd Platoon had theirs painted in patches as described above).
Last but not least, ‘232’ has a DIFFERENT type of turret loader’s hatch (the one with the centered handle type) whereas ‘222’ (the towing Tiger) has a later type.
Now ‘212’ was more of a problem at first because of the fairly murky nature of the various prints I studied. I blew up the necessary portion of this shot and eventually realized it could NOT possibly be the same vehicle as ‘212’ had a MONOCULAR sight (on the LHS of the mantlet) whereas ‘222’ had a BINOCULAR sight (the vast majority of the 2.Kp. Tigers had monocular sights by the way).
Also, the camo pattern on the front was radically different !
So by default, the TIGER TOWING ‘231’ HAD TO BE ‘222’ !!! (hope I’ve made myself clear).
This observation would not be of much help to us had both the location and date of these 3 shots not been ascertained !(the negatives from the Bundesarchiv are not dated by the way).
But finally they were when D. Taylor published his book as he was able to pinpoint the exact location and date !
For the record, his excellent book I’ve already mentioned above includes ALL of 100 photos that were taken by the German PK known to date; Taylor managed to find the complete rolls of negatives (minus one maybe, but this is another story) and listed them in the RIGHT order.
That way, it became apparent that these 3 shots were taken on the N175 (the V-B-Caen Road), north east of V-B, just past the Tilly-Sur-Seulles crossroads, as both Tigers headed towards Caen. This can mean only one thing : ‘231’ was disabled/hit on this part of the road, just outside of the city !
Now the date; here’s a quote from Taylor’s book that best explains it :
“A question arises as to the date when the photographs were taken. There are a few clues. The day of the battle can almost certainly be ruled out as the town was not in German hands until late on June 13(…). Anytime later than the evening of the 14th can be ruled out as a British bombing raid took place that night and more damage would have been visible around the town”.
So it is VERY likely that indeed these shots were taken on JUNE 14 !!
So where does this leads us to ?
Well, the obvious observation is as follows : take a good look at the pics of ‘222’ towing ‘231’ and hopefully you will realize that Tiger ‘222’ is virtually in a PRISTINE condition and looks almost as new as if it was rolling out of the factory !!!
Now we know that during the course of his solo foray into V-B, Wittmann encountered some opposition :Major Carr and Captain Dyas both claim to have scored frontal hits against Wittmann’s Tiger from a distance of less than 100 yards. In Carr’s instance, there were two shots with at least one turret hit. Dyas claims to have fired twice, and possibly have hit the running gear once, but did not immobilize the Tiger. Close scrutiny of the photos of ‘222’ reveal no frontal or left hand side turret damage, nor any evident damage to the LH running gear, the most likely side exposed to Dyas.
Surely such hits would have left some damage on the mantlet, turret and suspension, yet NONE IS APPARENT !!!
But MORE IMPORTANTLY, Wittmann’s Tiger was finally brought to a halt and he and his crew had to bail out eventually, so logically the Tiger he used would still be undergoing repair, if indeed it had been at all feasible for the Germans to salvage and tow it back so soon !!! (We’ve seen Villers was not in German hands before late in the evening of June 13).
Besides, this practice (one Tiger towing another) was STRICTLY forbidden on paper as the Maybach engine was designed to power one Tiger and not 2 !
I find it very hard to believe that the Germans would used such a vehicle (which had seen a fair bit of action on the previous day) to tow another !!
No, in all good faith, for all the reasons I’ve described, I just cannot believe ‘222’ was Wittmann’s mount on JUNE 13 1944 AT V-B !
However, it is correct that Wittmann ‘borrowed’ Kurt Sowa’s panzer on that day to carry out his attack, as accounted by Walther Lau who was a prime eyewitness then. It’s also true that ON PAPER, Sowa’s OFFICIAL mount was Tiger call sign ‘222’ INITIALLY (as from June 6), and I stress this !
I’m therefore quite confident Wittmann had Sowa’s Tiger still, its’ just that I everything seems to imply that, for some unknown reason, Sowa had swapped mounts with another Tiger Commander ON THE WAY to the Front, sometime within the previous days, and therefore was not in command of ‘222’ on that particular date !
As to what callsign Wittmann had for sure, it’s currently open to (much) debate…
This post of mine is already way too long and I can’t devote more time to this right now as I’m a very busy man.
I’m still researching the whole thing as I write this and simply cannot share all my observations to date, and many they are, as it would take me ages to type something like 30 or 40 pages of text !
I have made more progress than I can tell here but I still need more time and effort to hopefully solve more of this mystery, if at all possible. Time will tell…
As Jules said, there are still many question marks hanging and too much speculation involved for it to be really worth expanding now.
All I can tell you is I’m very much inclined to believe that Wittmann’s Tiger was hit and immobilized IN the center of Villers-Bocage, in the morning of June 13, although one British account in particular (Dyas’s) still contradicts this.
I have also identified MOST of the KO’d Tigers and how many were really KO’d too but will keep my mouth shut until I find more info.
I’m very sorry to say that in my humble opinion, it’s still somewhat risky to sound too definite about Wittmann’s Tiger number just like it’s not quite a sure thing as to where his Tiger was really stopped !
In other words, you may decide to model whichever Tiger you want, but you’re taking your chances !
Or, do as I do, postpone the whole project till the truth is known !!
PS : to the best of my knowledge, there’s no Sowa’s diary around to be found. P. Agte has interviewed ALL the known ‘survivors’ of the day’s events and used their recollections and personal notes for his book.
And it seems Sowa died a long time ago… (JSD: Kurt Sowa did NOT die in his KT 222, he managed to escpae the stricken tank with his crew as evening fell)
Last but not least, the SS101 ‘official’ diary no longer exists, only some incomplete records have been found to date.
Best regards from France.
Yann ‘none the wiser’ Jouault