Page 42 - History of War - Issue 05-14

The town of Villers-Bocage was flattened
by Allied bombing and artillery fire

12 July, the battalion launched a counter-
attack, which immediately ran into heavy offensive to the south-west. Here, two
resistance. One British survivor, Corporal good roads ran parallel to the coast
Douglas Proctor, recalled the horror of down to Avranches, where the bocage
that night’s attack: “The leading section gave way to more open country.
commander was attempting to scramble
A German armoured car in Caen. The heavy through the barbed wire… An enemy Furious combat
bombing seriously hindered Allied attempts bullet pierced his belly and, as a result, The Americans advanced on a broad
to take the city, as the rubble provided
excellent cover for the German defenders exploded the phosphorous grenade he front through country that was bocage
carried in his webbing pouch. Struggling at its worst. It was impossible to
in desperation, he became entangled in maintain contact between units, let alone
the barbed wire and hung there – a living, formations. The success of the attack
WHO KILLED w MAJOR screaming, human beacon. His only therefore depended on the energy and
experience of the platoon commander,
release from the fiery hell was to plead
MICHAEL ATTRACTION for someone to shoot him as quickly and and often the death or wounding of
FOLLOWING
WITTMANN? HIS HEROIC as mercifully as possible.” the officer would bring an advance to
a halt. The Americans found that when
The attack virtually wiped out 4th
As someone who was credited with the EXPLOITS IN Somerset Light Infantry: of the 36 men rain was falling and the hedgerows
THE ASSAULT
destruction of 138 Allied tanks, Michael ON SAINT-LÔ, in Bert Proctor’s platoon who went into were wet, radios could not transmit
Wittman’s status as one of the Waffen-SS’s DURING WHICH action, only nine remained. The battalion signals from one field to another. It
most prolific tank commanders is undisputed. HE LOST HIS LIFE, was pulled off Hill 112, only for another often happened that a platoon attack
What’s less certain is who was responsible THERE IS NOW to take its place. And so it went on, day
for his death. On 8 August 1944, Wittmann A MEMORIAL in one field succeeded, while attacks
unwittingly led seven Tiger tanks from the TO MAJOR after day, for another two weeks. in adjoining fields were defeated, which
Heavy SS-Panzer Battalion 101 into an THOMAS D HOWIE By the middle of July, the fighting in meant that coherence soon broke down.
ambush near the town of Saint-Aignan- IN THE CITY. the British and Canadian sectors had In order to maintain the advance, infantry
de-Cramesnil, during which his tank was become bogged down, and the situation commanders called in tanks, but the
destroyed by Allied shells. Following the in the American sector was no better. high silhouette of the Shermans made
war, claims of responsibility were made by After the fall of Cherbourg, Omar Bradley them easy targets for German anti-tank
everyone from 1st Polish Armoured Division had turned all his forces south. On guns. Armed with the Panzerfaust and
through 144 Regiment Royal Armoured Corps 3 July, VIII Corps, under the command the more formidable Panzerschreck,
to the RAF Second Tactical Air Force – which of Troy H Middleton, struck down the
is surprising, considering that Wittmann anti-tank teams stalked them in the
was not well-known to the Allies at the time western coast of the Cotentin Peninsula hedgerows, making them more of a
of his death, so would likely not have been towards Coutances. Simultaneously, liability than an asset.
recognised. Indeed, using careful analysis, Charles H Corlett’s XIX Corps attacked By 15 July, the four divisions that
historians have been able to dismiss most south-east of Carentan, along the Vire comprised VIII Corps had advanced
of the claims out of hand, based on location, River towards Saint-Lô. In the centre, just seven miles, at a cost of 10,000
the kind of ammunition used, etc, and the Bradley placed VII Corps under Collins, casualties. For VII Corps, the situation
most widely accepted theory is that the 1st who had Périers as his objective, a town was even worse. On 4 July, one of
Northamptonshire Yeomanry was responsible. halfway between Coutances and Saint- its divisions, the 83rd, succeeded in
Perhaps those others were just trying to score Lô. Bradley’s intention was to secure
brownie points by claiming an important scalp advancing just 200 yards, at a cost of
– after all, with Wittmann dead, the Allies the Saint-Lô-Coutances road and use 1,400 casualties. XIX Corps made no
took one step closer to winning the war. it as a line of departure for an all-out better progress. On 7 July, an attempt

THE GERMAN
BAZOOKA
The German
Raketenpanzerbüchse
was based heavily
on the American M1
Bazooka, which had
been captured in some
numbers in Tunisia in
1943. The confined
spaces of the bocage
meant that Allied
tanks became sitting
ducks to well-sited
“Panzerschreks”.
42 HISTORY WAR
of