Wittmann's Tiger Tank Rampage | Villers-Bocage, June 1944 

You make your own luck. And being skilled helps massively.

@@flammenjc Luck is a confluence of events, all happening simultaneously in your favor to create an irregularly large upper hand. You cannot make your own luck. You can, however, be prepared.

@@johndough1703 "You can, however, be prepared." Which is also called making your own luck. There will likely have been people in similar situations as Wittmann, but did nothing about it or nothing of the same effect so nobody will regard it as "lucky" because it wasn't capitalized on. Otherwise you can just say anything positive is luck and anything negative is bad luck. Decisions make those scenarios both bad and good it isn't always resting on "luck" that implies that the decisions involved are irrelevant and that's absolutely not the case. If you're one step ahead of your enemy you will definitely find yourself catching people off guard and/or presenting easy targets and it's not simply "luck"

Indeed, I've heard veterans talking about standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. Speaking of D-day, why did a German target one guy storming the beach instead of the guy standing next to him, dumb luck.

Captain Willie Whitelaw squadron got ambushed by 3 hunting Panthers were they were having their tea break and officers meeting. And the American task force welborn got ambushed by the king tigers that led up to the death of general Rose of the 3rd armored division. Traveling without flank security without reconnaissance can lead to a very deadly ambush.

No arguments here, I was just making light of the meme about us Brits always stopping for tea. Heaven forbid that soldiers might need a break and some refreshments in between getting shot at! Just maybe take a few precautions when doing so.

@@Karras353They didn’t stop for tea , they had tea because they’d stopped .

@@NickGillings-vf3ye Exactly my point. I'm not the enemy on this one.

@@Karras353 Indeed 👍

If memory serves, the sons of the lady of the manor were granted permission to recover and bury the British dead. I believe some of the graves were lost to the subsequent bombing of the town. He does get remembered.

RIP. My father was in Egypt, aged 19. Incredible what their generation faced.

My Great Uncle, Reg Knight, was a Firefly driver with B Sqn back in the town. He survived the war, but his best mate was killed in the action later in the day.

Respect to your Great Uncle from a German! My Grandfathers and 3 Grand Uncles all fought on the Eastern Front and during those Times against the British and Americans. In my case they all survived and became Friends with their former Enemies after the War. I basically grew up in the 1980s and 1990s meeting British and American WW2 Veterans that my Grandfathers and Granduncles tried to kill back then and vice versa. One thing i always noticed during those "Former Enemies Veteran Meetings" is that they all were insanely respectful towards eachother, eventhough they probably killed eachothers Comrades. Now compare that to RU-vid Comments, all of them weren't even born during those Days and yet many of them basically like to talk on behalf of their dead Grand or Great Grandfather being insulting towards their former Enemies. I'm rather sure if they were alive and knew some of their Offsprings talk like that, they'd slap them to Hell and back. Soldiers are always more respectful towards their Enemies than People who never fought in a War Prost & Cheers from Berchtesgaden in the Bavarian Alps

@@chartreux1532well said

" Poop in the Pants " moment ............. 😬😬😬😬

Or suicidal.

@@bloke755 He drove straight at Wittmann so I don't think he pooped his pants..it's that rare thing called courage because I'm guessing he had a pretty good idea that he would die

@@theart8039 I presume he knew his chances of survival were limited either way so he did the brave thing and tried to save others.

Reminds me of the 2 Bradleys that stumbled across a T90 in Ukraine

He gave his young life to save his friends.

I think he was mentioned by Lazerpig in his video on the engagement.

He killed himself and his friends, for what?

@@Jerico1900to distract the tiger and alert the others

@@Personontheinternet4598 🤣Yeah I'm sure the explosions and and gun fire didn't alert annyone🤣🤣🤣

True

Especially in open country where it could use its gun to great effect, such as Estrees la Campagne during Operation Totalize.

In this case the Brits being caught off guard was a huge factor. That Firefly not being caught unaware could have easily resulted in Whitman being wrecked right from the get go, exactly in the way he was eventually killed soon after this battle

@chuckhaggard1584 Wittmann was later killed by ambush on his flank though. He didn't even see what was firing at him, so it was a bit different to Villers. At Villers the British tanks on the road up to Point 213 were visible to him and he was facing them frontally. I always thought he was further away from the tanks at the lead of the British column than the representation shows here.

@@lyndoncmp5751 my point stands. If he hadn't caught them with their pants down the two Fireflies would have made a wreck of his tank. The Brit's screwed up big time being that near the very fluid front line without recon working and no screen line deployed. They had scouts, towards the rear of the column, that's unbelievably dumb. That his Tiger was knocked out by a lowly 57mm gun speaks to how lucky he was to not be fired on by all the other potential guns involved in this mess. I'm aware of how Whittman met his end.

Lazerpig’s videos are fun and full of misinformation.

​@@GM-xk1nw was he wrong about Wittmann?

@@GM-xk1nw Elaborate?

Lazerpig's video and premise are accurate as far as the Nazi regime capitalizing and embellishing on Wittmann's exploits in Normandy, while downplaying Kurt Knispel who was a better tank ace but not a Nazi party member. However, lazerpig forgets or glosses over the fact that Wittmann had already made a name for himself on the Eastern Front, credited with over 90 kills. Wittmann received the Knights Cross of the Iron Cross in early 1944, an award that affirmed his skills as a tank commander. During Citadel Wittmann was credited with 7x tank and 10x AT Guns destroyed in one day; at Zhitomir he was credited with 10 and 10 of each. Wittmann rose from a crewman through tank commander to Platoon Leader of a Tiger Platoon; he also earned a battlefield commission. These activities portray him as an aggressive, at least somewhat proficient leader, yet as pig points out, a sycophant too obedient to party - the sort of person the Nazi's needed as role model. It is also possible the Nazi's were happy to promote the narrative of Wittmann as a star because he was killed shortly after the Normandy battle. A perverse attempt to capitalize on the theory, "your death is not in vain if you die for the fatherland", during a time of increasing casualties and collapsing morale in the Wehrmacht. Edit: change east front figures from 130 to 90.

@@Marc-vc1woI have it in mind that Lazapig did in fact mention all that you just said there. At least i’m fairly sure he did

Well put and the last Napoleon comment is amusing !

Eh, his decision to attack personally with his command units instead of waiting for his full command to arrive was a pretty god awful decision. He may have been able to go on a rampage, but practically alone and without infantry support, it was only a matter of time till somebody on the allied side got lucky and popped his treads. He then had to walk back to his HQ, an hour and a half long treck while his unit did nothing and the allies were able to call in reinforcements now that they knew german armor was in the area. When Whittman finally ordered the rest of his unit in, the attack was peacemeal, and the now alert and dug in allies shredded them one tank platoon at a time. At the end of the day the allies lost a few vehicles they replaced within a few days, and whitman had lost dozens of precious panzers including a tiger that were not easy to replace due to the 8th airforce saying 'Nice assembly line there, would be a shame if we carpet bombed the full zipcode around it'. Only reason Whittman ever got another tiger was he bitched and moaned to the party he would go public about him being benched... and then he lost that tiger when he charged a small horde of angry Canadian Shermans, along with his life. Whitman was the kind of scum who strafed ambulances, so good riddance to bad rubbish.

@@elroyscout Meh, at least he fought to his death. The dude could've just stayed in the rear according to you but he didn't and died... you could say the fame got to him, but he died for a cause nevertheless, the kind of action that emboldens others, not just his own.

@@elroyscout "tiger that were not easy to replace due to the 8th airforce saying 'Nice assembly line there, " WISHFUL THINKING, dear Yank ally. Germany manufacturers' output of tanks actually peaked in December 1944 - after Villers Bocage. There was no deficiency of German tank production at the time. As to air bombing, it was impeded by the British/American bickering over strategy. The Yanks (Gen Spaatz et al) argued for destruction of Germany's synthetic fuel industry, whilst the Limeys (AVM Portal et al) urged the elimination of Germany's transport network - railways, canals&ports, road junctions etc. For the case of Tiger tank production (only), the RAF's strategy was probably better than 8th USAAF's. For what it's worth, "World at War" has a post-war interview with Albert Speer (by mid-1944, effectively Minister for War Production) where he says that British (RAF) night time 'Area Bombing' did considerably more damage to German production generally than the USAAF's day time efforts at Norden bombsite 'precision' strikes.

@@elroyscout "due to the 8th airforce saying 'Nice assembly line there, would be a shame if we carpet bombed the full zipcode around it'...." American military historians have a very short attention span. Not much glory in re-constructing post-war rubble, so afterwards, let's trumpet Marshall Aid and get on with the serious business of hanging Nazis under American jurisdiction (or, in the case of Sgt. John Woods, US Army, lying about his hangman credentials and botching all his executions) or bitching that the Limeys in British Germany won't hand over their Nazis to get their necks stretched - a happy determination for the likes of Kesselring and Runstedt who thus avoided 'American justice'. But, economic historians of German reconstruction (mainly European) are quite clear that German industrial capability wasn't greatly reduced - probably no more than about 8% overall - by combined British and American bombing, each ally dropping about one million tons of bombs. And, Germany ended the war with more resources, real estate and so on than she started with. 25% MORE functioning machine tools at the end than at the beginning, for example. An inconvenient truth to proponents of air power - especially American air power. And, it's doubtful if that Marshall money contributed much - probably about 1% of German GDP during the recovery phase. As for the British who received the largest slice of Marshall, that money wasn't really needed. It was actually spent on Britain's nuclear weapons programme. Turns out that the secret Quebec Treaty meant that the Brits were baked into America's nuke development and they couldn't be got rid of, ever - as Senator McMahon found out to Congress' s impotent fury in 1946. So, the Limey's had to be BRIBED to go away.

Maybe. But the monument in V-B does not include any Brits.

????? The monument to the 22nd Armoured Brigade?@@MothaLuva

@@nickthenoodle9206 No. The monument to Michael Wittmann.

@@MothaLuva You mean his headstone?

​@@dnate697it's a flat stone at La Cambe, a shrine for Neo Nazis. I'm grateful that my countrymen put him there.

You need to expand your research than. Many things where left out that explain the situation and writing the entire action off as "lucky" and that Wittman was a coward is unforgivable British propaganda and revisionism trying to excuse bad performance on the day by the British.

Oh it was still a mistake.

@@DeosPraetorian It was still a mistake, but look at the opposing tanks. Mistakes after mistakes after mistakes. Yet Wittman had to go through 29 vehicles before he made his mistake. Yes he needed to be lucky, but that's true for literally everyone in a war.

@@yedrellow well we had the "luck" of having American factories churning out a hundred Shermans in the time it took the Germans to build a single Tiger tank and that's luck that lasted a lot longer than Wittmann's did

was inexcusable by the defense?

@@1IbramGaunt I never disagreed. I just think people have swung extremely far the other way away from "heroism" propaganda to the point of not even acknowledging that when one tank takes out 29 vehicles that it requires some level of skill. It's not an endorsement, just an acknowledgement that sometimes individuals in war can achieve a lot more than those around them when luck and skill combine. Soldiers aren't interchangeable automatons, sometimes some individuals are less prone to error and more capable of capitalising on luck than others.

That is what Carius wrote in his book 'Tigers In The Mud'. For July 22nd 1944 he claimed a total 53 Soviets tanks for the Tigers he was with and 58 kills for the whole Unit. Unfortunately (for Carius) at the back of his book he reproduces Period Unit Documents written by the commanding officer of his Unit and this man noted that that day they knocked out............17 Soviet tanks. Someone is making things up.

@@michaelkenny8540 , there are a few problems with your analysis. Soviets tanks in 1944 didn't have carousel auto-loaders to blow up their turrets a 100 meters. Tanks could be damaged, crew killed, and then same tanks could be recovered, the hole welded over and new crew sent to fight once more. It is different if you are advancing and capturing damaged tanks, but in 1944 the Germans were not. Also, mismatched battle reports are very common in war. It could be some vehicles killed were not tanks, but anti-tank vehicles, or anti-air, half-tracks and a dozen other things(there is smoke and fires and dust in a battle, unlike in a game). It could also be nobody went in to verify the kills, if the Soviets were still pressing an attack.

@@andrew3203 The facts are clear. Carius says 50+ Soviet tanks were knocked out by the Tigers. The commander of the Tiger Unit had to do a report about the Units actions and he notes that on the day Carius claims 50+ kills the whole Unit claimed 17 Kills. It is as simple as that.

Indeed

LP is an idiot

What?

Way overrated

Cheers Rex Ingram! 🥂

Especially the part with things being balanced is rarely really seen. So this is timeless.

The British sitting around drinking tea, and this channel saying, "oh Wittmann was just lucky. This wasn't a British defeat. He didn't fight in the second half of the day. Nobody told us he was coming and the dog had eaten our maps". This channel, still so salty, lol !

Not quite as long as the video is .. wonder if that was planned or not.

*asspounding you mean

But Wittmann was actually hit in the flank by another Cromwell and it didn't penetrate, so I doubt the Cromwell of Dyas would have penetrate the Tiger's rear, which was slightly stronger than the side, due to the 8 degrees angle. Both the side and rear were 80mm thick.

@@lyndoncmp5751 “Early models of the Cromwell were equipped with the QF 6-pounder (57 mm). Using the new armour-piercing discarding sabot round, which became available in quantity in early 1944, this gun could penetrate over 100 mm of steel armour at ranges on the order of 1,000 yards (910 m), making it effective against all but the most heavily armoured tanks.” The rear armour of a Tiger is 88mm and Dyas would have been firing from virtually point blank. Like many in 7th armoured, he was a veteran of the Western Desert, not new to combat. At the very least Wittman would have been disabled. As he was a little later by a 6pdr gun… however it’s still if but and maybe.

@@callumgordon1668 None of the three Cromwell shots that actually hit Wittmanns Tiger (2 from Dyas, 1 from Carr) penetrated or even slowed Wittmann down. And those three shots were at point blank range. Dont forget the Tiger I had unique extremely high quality nickel -steel of 265 Brinell Hardness in places. Paper penetrations often failed to materialise in actuality, especially when we include firing angles. I doubt Dyas would have waited to be perfectly perpendicular to Wittmann's rear before firing, and possibly would have shot from an angle thus making penetration unlikely. Wittmanns Tiger was hit by the 6 pounder in the running gear apparently. I don't think Dyas would have been targeting the tracks.

@@lyndoncmp5751 and all those shots were targeting its thickest armour, so they reacted as you describe. Point blank onto thinner rear armour may have had a different outcome. There is a case (disputed) where a Greyhound AC took out a Tiger II by rapidly firing at its engine deck. If the AT gun crew, which regardless disabled the Tiger in the prescribed manner had been quicker with their small arms, his career might have ended there too…

@@callumgordon1668 That was almost certainly a Panther that the Greyhound took out near St Vith during the Bulge. There were no King Tigers, or Tiger Is, anywhere near St Vith. Nearest were at Stavelot, Trois Ponts and La Gleize. Plus the Tiger losses are documented and recorded. Only 13 Tigers were lost in the northern section of the Bulge. All documented and dated, with turret numbers listed. None at St Vith. Panthers were frequently called Tigers. King Tigers had 80mm sloped rear armour. No Greyhound is getting through that. The Panther 'only' had 40mm rear armour however. Lastly, seeing as most people in the tanks Wittmann hit and penetrated actually survived, it's very probable Wittmann would have survived too, even if one of the less powerful allied shells penetrated so he may have carried on in another Tiger later. I believe Carr's Cromwell hit the side of Wittmann's Tiger turret? Not quite sure. That was 80mm, same as the rear. It didn't penetrate or even do any real damage I don't think.

Wrong video

And then the following day on August 9th at Estrees la Campagne, a small number of Tigers from the rest of Wittmann's battalion were largely responsible for the destruction of Worthington Force. The Canadian 28th Armoured Regiment lost 47 tanks, including 44 Shermans, mostly to long range sniping from the Tigers firing from 1,000 metres and more. Even having Fireflies didnt help the Canadians. No Tigers were lost in the engagement.

According to modern sources it more probably some rocket from a Typhoon who has destroy Wittman's tiger.

@@ChristopheA-dd5we No that's been 100% refuted. It was the Canadians close to Wittmann's left flank who got him, firing from behind the chateau wall.

@@lyndoncmp5751 so as I said at the end we are not sure. that the reality period.

@@ChristopheA-dd5we Yes we are sure. No Typhoon got him. Canadian Shermans firing from as close as 150 metres on his left flank got him.

He’s likely the only one that didn’t wet himself when they turned out on the road and found a tiger staring at them. Lol

Think he would have crapped himself. Tell me why would you let the guy out in the middle of a battle? Did he jump out and try and run away.

A wise man once saied: Wittman wasnt the best tank ace of ww2, he was the luckiest."

Not really because when he began his attack the British tanks were all in his line of vision on the road and weren't all over the place on his flanks. He also, understandably, had great confidence in the Tiger's ability to take enemy shots. Which his Tiger did for the most part.

@@lyndoncmp5751 He literaly drove intl a town full of angles and allys. Heck, he literaly drive past 2 tanks without noticing. And his Tiger was lost during its very first engagment in the west. Heck evrey single Tiger in the platoon he was leading was turned into scrap that day.

@@yoschiannik8438 None of his 2nd Kompanie Tigers were lost that day. Even his own was later recovered.

@@yoschiannik8438because your thoughts are based on what you've heard. You dont know whether the germans had recon missions there, what information did Wittmann posess.

From what I've seen the Germans didn't really know much about the Firefly before Normandy.

@@TTTT-oc4eb Yes definitely the Germans knew nothing about the Firefly before Normandy, as it wasn't deployed in combat until June 6th 1944. I just wondered what the grapevine word was in the week after D-day, up to Villers Bocage on the 13th. Perhaps there was none. I suspect Wittmann had heard little or nothing about Fireflies, as Wittmann was in transit from northeast France to the Normandy front from the 7th to the 12th. Wittmann likely wouldn't have even known about Cromwells either, as they weren't deployed in combat until D-Day like the Firefly.

The British sitting around drinking tea, and this channel saying, "oh Wittmann was just lucky. This wasn't a British defeat. He didn't fight in the second half of the day. Nobody told us he was coming and the dog had eaten our maps". This channel, still so salty, lol !

"luckily" ??

Its a euphemism.

@@michaelkenny8540 The account didn't indicate it was an euphemism.

Might not have made a difference. The Tiger's rear was still 80mm thick and slightly angled at 8 degrees, which made the rear slightly thicker than the sides.

@@michaelkenny8540 The British sitting around drinking tea, and this channel saying, "oh Wittmann was just lucky. This wasn't a British defeat. He didn't fight in the second half of the day. Nobody told us he was coming and the dog had eaten our maps". This channel, still so salty, lol !

The British sitting around drinking tea, and this channel saying, "oh Wittmann was just lucky. This wasn't a British defeat. He didn't fight in the second half of the day. Nobody told us he was coming and the dog had eaten our maps". This channel, still so salty, lol !

The german army had a lot of tank "aces" if you want to call them that. Even at the end of the war they were still capable of winning tactical victories (for example at Bautzen or Paderborn)

The book you mention is 20 years old and contains errors. Taylor has just released another book in 2023 (Villers Bocage. Operation Perch: The Complete Account.) which is far more detailed with much more comprehensive coverage

Also because in a lot of cases, at such close ranges and against thinly armored light tanks, the 88mm AP shell would not meet significant enough resistance to detonate, but would instead pass straight through the vehicle and out on the other side. The spray of shrapnel would still be dangerous, but significantly less so than having the explosive charge detonate inside the tank.

Most of the crews hopping out when deep behind enemy lines certainly helped the men survive.

Yeah although how much of those successes were actually HIS we'll never really know now given the combination of propaganda, lost real combat records and the German habit of assigning the whole unit's kills

@@1IbramGaunt I think OP was talking about how Wittmann would just charge into battle (even by himself like he was the main character), rather than his achievements.

@@1IbramGauntSomeone is butthurt

@@guaporeturns9472 you are projecting your own way of thinking

@@1IbramGaunt In my experience reasarching about ww2 aces, either tank aces or pilots its pretty obvious to me that the numbers are realistic... Those soldiers went to multiple fronts fighting for months, even years, they went up the ranks to comanders, usually heavy outnumbered in combat and some of them survived the war, some died in the last 2 months... What do u think if u went to the eastern front, fought for years and after transfered to France how many tank kills would you had to your name?

Wittmann: You underestimate my 88mm! Ekins: Don't try it! Wittmann: Arghhhh Ekins: *MULTIKILL!!! *

They were pinning down the leading British elements on Point 213.

@@lyndoncmp5751 Many thanks.

@@davidtruesdale456 No worries. There is also an argument that one of the other Tigers also moved towards the town itself but I don't think there is definite proof of this.

@@lyndoncmp5751 You may well se this in print, someday. Thanks again.

@@davidtruesdale456 Daniel Taylor's updated book on Villers Bocage is the best we will get in print. Unfortunately, it doesn't go into great detail regarding the other Tigers except to say they were engaging the leading British elements on Point 213, with another one engaging further towards town. The British thought there might have been a Tiger to the north of the road as well but that was likely just confusion, as none of the Tigers would have bivouacked north of the road individually. They were all bivouacked a couple of hundred metres south of the road in a sunken lane, out of sight of the road when the British advanced and in the process of having some maintenance work done on them. I can't see how one would have ended up north of the road.

Find ANY American account of Kasserine that either doesn't blame the British for American weakness and failure OR claims that Americans won a victory there. Yanks are the most butthurt nation on the planet. Go to Wikipedia's 'talk' section on any article to do with the US and you'll find an entire country trying to re-write history.

If that's true where's Whitmann

@@1IbramGaunt there were an awful lot of bold men fighting that war

@@randyhavard6084 I meant that Wittmann was certainly "bold" alright (if by "bold" you mean a vain, arrogant egomaniac glory-hound who wanted to be first into the fray not so much out of bravery but because he wanted all the attention and fame for himself) and that's what got him killed, he tried this exact same racing on ahead alone thing again, not long after in another Tiger 1 against similar opponents, and let's just say good luck doesn't last forever

@@1IbramGaunt I know the story very well, I didn't say it was a good idea or the right thing for him to have done but the only reason you and I or anybody else know about Whitman is because of his aggressiveness, just like Irwin Rommel. Not always a good idea but it just might make you famous.

@@randyhavard6084 no argument to be made there I guess

only 1 other was operational. the rest were broken down and repairing

@@shadelampsofficial Oh ok, makes sense. They were Tigers after all :o)

@@shadelampsofficial If that's so, why can we see another Tiger right next to Wittman's at 14:06. One with turret front and another to the side.

@@SoltyII im not even sure if those pictures were from the battle or just after it

@@shadelampsofficial just after it, and the "after it" is the part of the battle the Wehraboo Wittmann-fanboys really don't want you to know about haha; because the fact is that, when you look at the bigger picture they actually LOST this damn battle, losing several virtually-irreplaceable Tiger tanks (out of the only 30-something they had on the whole Western front) in the process, in exchange for British and American vehicles we had thousands upon thousands more of

And how much ammo a Tiger had? 92?

Wittmann was interviewed for a propaganda piece a month later and he said that he pulled back when encountering the Firefly. The purpose of the attack was to aggressively disrupt the enemy force coming up the road. The Germans taught and practiced individual aggression and simply "pushing your luck".

@@Wien1938 Agreed, but most people can only push their luck so far, as Wittmann found out on 8th Aug '44. He may have had more 'luck' though if his division had done any reconnaissance, & even survived that encounter.

@@eric-wb7gj I think Wittmann and other Eastern front veterans acquired habits which served them well in that theater against the Russians, but were suicidal when they encountered the Allies in Normandy with their superior scouting assets, massive amounts of effective anti-tank weapons, and much better access to things like tactical radios.

@@dpeasehead Quite possibly, they had never faced a modern western army before. German tactics of quick counter attacks didn't always work, they'd found that out in 1916/1917. Everyone was making mistakes. On the Allied side, the Desert Rats were a veteran formation, but all in the Desert, they had to 'unlearn' a lot in Normandy. Sadly, for the other British troops, they didn't have (& still don't) have enough areas to train properly. Coming up against Eastern Front veterans was also a steep learning curve.

Yeah, he was looking in every direction he could. What's your point ?

I’ve seen it. His crew and he are in a single grave, which tells its own story, notwithstanding their remains were relocated long after.

Never miss the chance for a free bathroom

@@agripinaa8684 always be going

@@callumgordon1668 The Germans haven't got an Official War Grave Commission, so the graves are maintained from Funds donated from private persons. Close to my former home in Denmark, the names on the German Graves became repainted by young persons coming up in summer. And one group of Germans are outside the stone-fence of the Churchyard, because the local Priest (!) wouldn't allow the graves (Mostly fugitives from the East!) inside "His Churchyard"!

@@finncarlbomholtsrensen1188 my understanding is that Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge look after German War Graves from the World Wars outwith Germany? You are of course right that they’re mostly charitably funded. I’ve only visited large German cemeteries in Europe. In the U.K., it’s quite common to have small numbers of military graves in our cemeteries, usually associated with adjacent hospitals, or naval bases and airfields. I can’t find the reference and given some of those who’re interested in this, you have to be careful of your sources, but my understanding is that Wittmann and his crew’s remains were relocated some years after his death and reinterred at La Cambe, which is the main German cemetery for the Normandy Campaign. His Tiger apparently exploded after being KOd, hence the famous picture of the turret upside down. Best not to dwell on the impact of those, probably already dead, in the tank. If anyone has a credible reference regarding the above, I’d welcome.

True. Videos of this channel are not getting better ... 😂 Like Wittmann said to the four other Tigers: 'stay here, I got this! ' 😅

Too much tea and too many pee breaks 🤷‍♂️

...."some online research. From Wikipedia" ..... funniest thing I've heard all day, lol !

All part of the ambush*. With sterotypical Teutonic efficiency, the Germans tried the same thing several times expecting a different result. * To clarify: the afternoon's ambush of a mixed force of Tigers and PzIVs by a troop of 4 CLY. The latter were just off the main road in a square, and the former obliged them by driving past

A bit like Stonne where one French CharB1 charged into the town by itself and came across a German column and massacred it. Again it had separated from its own Company and had no infantry support. In both cases it was reckless rather than just brave and should have gone horribly wrong and the presentation here shows assorted ways in which it might have. Both were lucky and had the skill to exploit the luck but Company commanders have no business charging into enemy occupied towns by themselves. Both were wrong decisions which turned into successful results.

Not for Rex Ingram it wasn't

Also a brown trouser for Wittmann as he legged it after encountering a Firefly.

@@StuSaville You mean when the firefly commander crapped himself when the house fell on him and failed to knock out the tiger when its turret was turned to the side. Aye. The british were a shambles that day. Move on.

@@1IbramGaunt Brits got an asspounding that day, lol

By then he was in charge of his own tank, pretty sure he was badly wounded later on in a panther by a fighter bomber but survived the war.

There are photos of a ransacked Pz IV at the top of the town that appears to have bellied itself on the log in question. I think we can infer that it was a genuine hazard, and one that the amateurish, incompetent Brits managed to avoid unlike the elite, professional Germans.