Photo probably taken on the morning of June 14th, near Les Hauts Vents, on the old Caen road shows a camouflaged Tiger where Wittmann’s Kompanie was in position while waiting for the supply vehicles.
The Battalion on its way to Normandy:
On June 6th, the battalion was north of Beauvais, some 70km north of Paris. In the time needed to assemble the scattered companies, the battalion was ready to set off for the Normandy front during the night of June 6-7th. It was recommended as much as possible to move only in the cover of night, to avoid being attacked by Allied fighter-bombers (Jabo).
The convoy passed through Gournay-en-Bray, Lyons forest, Morgny where it came under aerial attack on the 7th, and Les Andelys where the bridge across the Seine had been bombed and was no longer capable of taking the weight of a 57 ton Tiger tank. This entailed a broad detour southwards to Paris where the battalion paraded down the Champs-Elysées, obviously for propaganda purposes, before moving up to the front. In the woods near Versailles, the battalion was the target of a major night attack from the air, with the 3rd Kompanie and the workshop kompanie sustaining heavy losses.
During the long journey, the Kompanies remaining tanks encountered mechanical problems, forcing commanders to leave them where they stood until they could be repaired, with the attendant risk of leaving them at the mercy of a marauding Jabo. The road followed past through Dreux, Verneuil, Argentan and Falaise. The Kompanies sustained further casualties, with 9 killed and 21 wounded on the Creil road, at Versailles, at Argentan where Scharführer Kleber was killed, and at Falaise.
The theoretical strength of a Kompanie was 14 Tigers, but on June 12th, When Michael Wittmann’s 2.Kompanie reached Villers after passing through Epinay-sur-Odon, it was down to 6 Tigers, and 4 of those required attention the following day. The 1.Kompanie under command of Hauptsturmführer Möbius was some 10km further east in the Noyers area, and was down to 8 Tigers.
Meanwhile, the 3.Kompanie was in Falaise on June 14th where during the night of the 14-15th they suffered a devastating bomber raid that killed 130 townspeople. The Germans lost 3 Tigers, 18 men killed and 11 wounded. That same night, Aunay-en-Odon was bombarded for the second time after the raid on the 12th, and the whole town was reduced to rubble, leaving 56 dead. The SS-Schw.Abtl.101 had its headquarters at Baron-sur-Odon.
In the afternoon of June 12th, Wittmann’s Kompanie reached Epinay-sur-Odon, and moved to the foot of the Cot des Landes where, under the cover of sunken lanes, it found shelter south of highway N175. This afforded a chance to get some rest while waiting till the supply vehicles following behind caught up.
That evening, Monseiur Henri Robine saw two tanks. One had started to move up his farm track leading to the highway, before turning back and taking shelter in the Hauts Vents farmyard. The commander parked his Tiger in the barn, the laid down in the grass where, dog-tired, he fell fast asleep. The other Tiger stayed in under the trees of a country lane known as ” the old Caen road” to the east of the farm. According to citizens who were sheltering at the cider-house on Epinay road, these two Tigers were accompanied by three other tanks, some light vehicles, and German soldiers.
During the night, the Tigers moved on at least three times. They must have been located by spotter planes because they were hounded by naval shells, which however caused no damage.
I.SS-Panzerkorps Liason officer SS-Obersturmführer Jürgen Wessel made contact with the Panzer-Lehr-Division which informed him of the skirmishes during the noon of June 12th between German units and and British Hussars guarding the 22nd Armored Brigade’s left flank. The officer alerted the I.Panzerkorps HQ, which in turn alerted 1. and 2. Kompanies of the 12.SS-Panzer-Division ‘Hitlerjugend’ as well.
Thus, on June 12th, The Germans knew that a British attack was on the way but not the exact direction it was going to take, and the few tanks on the lookout in various places sidestepped the battle to let the Allied column advance, the better to neutralize it later on when they could counter with a better compliment of weapons and men.
So General Montgomery’s surprise attack turned out to be nothing of the sort...