Waffen-SS: Villers Bocage, 1944

Background

In mid-June 1944, General Montgomery saw an opportunity to split the German front in Normandy and then take Caen from the rear. He committed his famed 7th Armoured Division to the offensive, codenamed Perch, and believed that victory would be quick and total. But he reckoned without the intervention of the Waffen-SS's leading tank ace, who would stop the British in their tracks.

Operation Perch

With the Canadians and British stalemated in front of Caen by the stalwart defence of the Hitlerjugend Division, General Montgomery decided to exploit the gap in the German front. He resolved that this would best be done on the exposed Waffen-SS division's left flank. The Panzer Lehr Division was moving into place next to the Hitlerjugend after something of a long delay, but in turn its left flank was also exposed, and the Germans had not yet been able to establish a continuous front between the divisions shielding Caen and units fighting the Americans in the western part of Normandy.

Montgomery's answer was Operation Perch. The fresh British 7th Armoured Division was launched southwards around the open left flank of the Panzer Lehr Division on 12 June. Its mission was to outflank the Panzer Lehr, then swing around behind it and drive hell for leather through Villers-Bocage towards Caen, trapping both the Hitlerjugend and Panzer Lehr Divisions. On paper, the plan was very sound; indeed, it was straight out of the German Army's Blitzkrieg school of tactics. The execution was flawed, however, and the famous Desert Rats soon found their nemesis in the shape of a single, determined Waffen-SS Tiger I tank commander.

The SS Tiger companies

The 57-tonne (56-ton) Tiger I tank had been in service with the Waffen-SS since late 1942. It had first seen action with devastating effect during the heavy fighting around Kharkov on the Eastern Front in February and March 1943. With its 88mm cannon, the Tiger could easily punch through the armour of Soviet T-34s and Allied Shermans at a range of more than 1500m (4921ft). At first the Leibstandarte, Das Reich and Totenkopf Divisions had each been assigned a Tiger I company of some 15 tanks, although the Tiger's notorious unreliability meant that often only half of a company's tanks were operational at any one time. These tanks had been used as spearhead units during the Battle of Kursk in July 1943.

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