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august 8, 1944 wittmann (correction of some erroneous information)

the cemetery of wittmann's crew. these two blurry photos were taken by yuanquan1980 (also from nanjing like me) when he paid tribute to wittmann's cemetery in 2005. it is easy to find because there are flowers on his cemetery all year round.

in this article, i have no intention of writing about wittmann’s life and battle examples. i just want to organize the information that is still confusing (nanjing dialect) in china.

in the earliest days, the adolf hitler ss leibstandarte motorized infantry regiment, which was preparing to participate in operation barbarossa, received an assault gun company equipped with the iii assault gun type a. the ss leibstandarte itself also expanded to the strength of a motorized infantry brigade in the first year.

wittmann (front left) in front of his iii assault gun, and on the right is his driver philipp fritz. the date is july 12, 1941, and both of them received the second class iron cross. wittmann's car was nicknamed "buzzard", which means vulture. the assault gun company number was written on the rear of the car body at that time, so we don't know the number of wittmann's iii assault gun.

on the eve of the battle of kursk, the heavy armored companies of the guards leibstandarte division were all equipped with tiger tanks, unlike the previous kharkov counterattack, which was a mixture of tiger tanks and panzer iii m. wittmann also became the platoon leader of the 3rd platoon. so his car was no. 1331.

no. 1331 so far, no black and white photos have been seen

so i still don't know how the 1331 number of this white box of dragon was verified? i later found out that they verified it by consulting people in the circle and hanging out on forums... so how they verified it is just like the 217 number of tiger in the squatting pit of the novka battle of karius before, in short, it is questionable.

later, wittmann had no problem using s04. at the end of 1943, colin, the former commander of the 13th heavy armored company, was transferred to the commander of the 2nd battalion of the guards division armored regiment. martin gross, the former commander of the 2nd battalion, was injured in the battle. wittmann became the acting company commander. he did not use the company commander's special vehicle s05, which was damaged. i don't know whether colin was using it before it was damaged and wittmann was using s04, or whether s05 was already finished when wittmann became the acting company commander.

the medal ceremony on january 18, 1944 was so famous that wittmann and his gunners received the rk

after the guards had spent all their savings in italy in zhitomir and berdichev, the division returned to western europe for rest and recuperation. the original 13th heavy armored company was also disbanded, and the 101st ss heavy armored battalion was expanded with the company as the core. the company was assigned to the division, and the heavy armored battalion was directly assigned to the army. the 101st ss heavy armored battalion was also directly under the 1st ss panzer corps, that is, the 1st ss panzer corps.

during the battle of normandy, the army commander was sepp dietrich, the first division commander of the leibstandarte, and it was originally planned to command the leibstandarte division and the hitler youth division. however, in actual combat, the army had multiple units under its command.

let’s get back to wittmann.

in 1943, the guards used 05 and 04 as the vehicle numbers for the company commander and deputy company commander. for example, the 13th company in kursk had 1305 as the company commander and 1304 as the deputy company commander. at the end of 1943, 13 was replaced with s, which is the first letter of the german word for heavy. that is, s05 as the company commander and s04 as the deputy company commander.

after being expanded into a battalion, the 101st ss heavy armored battalion continued this practice. wittmann also became the commander of the 2nd company. so his car was no. 205.

the photo was taken when the 101st ss heavy armored battalion was rushing from paris to normandy. standing on the commander's tower was wittmann.

next, this photo is also very famous.

in may 1944, german war correspondent scheck visited the ss 101st heavy armored battalion in beauvais, france, and took a series of publicity photos of michael wittmann, the tank ace of the 2nd company, and several tank commanders of the 2nd company. among them, the most famous photo is the one of wittmann sitting on a tiger tank.

but please note that this is the 2nd company's base. there are a series of photos with this tiger as the background. careful friends have already seen the difference in details between the artistic painting and the real photo. it must also be emphasized that there are texts saying that this is the tiger no. 212 of his gunner, wall, who was promoted to commander at this time, but after verification by top foreign insiders, the conclusion is that it is not, and it is still unknown and in doubt.

domestic marketing accounts and idiotic materials have given this background tiger many car numbers, but they are all wrong. the correct answer is "unknown"

next came the famous battle of villers-bocage (this is a town so town is more appropriate, the old translation is bocage, and it is widely circulated). now many friends know that wittmann used tiger no. 212

when wittmann abandoned the car in town, the "212" was parked in front of a store called "huet-godefroy" on barstow road.

later, wittmann appears in this video shot in july 1944. he is using tiger no. 231. some military numbers would write tiger no. 231 as the one he used in the town of villers-bocage, which is completely wrong.

from the video screenshot, you can clearly see that it is no. 231

no. 231 was destroyed in the bourgèbe area south of caen on 20 july 1944. operation goodwood…

next is the famous wittmann's final battle of 007. this is the only picture so far.

in fact, before february 2020, it was not clear which tigers of the 101st ss heavy armored battalion participated in the final battle. this is also the reason why many previous materials were very confusing.

however, most military numbers in the early days could only be explained and verified based on this map. on the map, you can see no. 312, no. 009, no. 314, no. 007 near the road and a tiger with an unknown number.

in fact, all the research in this picture is based on the research results of mr. yann jouault, an expert on the 101st heavy armored battalion of the french ss, from 2007 to 2009. during this period, he has modified this plan many times, but most of the information on the internet is still based on this picture.

at first, no one believed that this ace had died. the typhoon theory accounted for a large proportion of the opinions, and later came the famous theory of a duel between the two men.

now, without yann jouault and his friend muzalkov and other bigwigs in the circle, people in some foreign circles know that 007 has already concluded from the death location, explosion direction, time, location and other factors that wittmann's death has nothing to do with eakins. this point has long been a consensus among the top foreign circles, so it is basic knowledge.

well, now everyone knows that no. 007 was destroyed by fire from the left side of the road (looking from south to north), but it is still unknown which car or which person destroyed no. 007. this is still under research, or waiting for more information to be discovered. there are definitely photos of no. 007 from other angles, but where did these photos go? did the owner lose them, damage them, or are they willing to show them...

well, here, after verification by yann jouault, muzalkov, dan-taylor and other top experts in this circle from france, russia and the united kingdom, and through a photo leaked from the poles in early february 2020, it was finally confirmed which tiger tanks participated in the battle that day and what kind of formation they formed.

why did the poles have photos? this is what i mentioned before. many poles began to commemorate the total heartbeat last saturday, because this action was the first time that the polish 1st armored division supported by the british entered the normandy battlefield to participate in the battle. most poles commemorate them, and don't mention the polish troops supported by the soviet army.

from this restored image, we can see that there were a total of 7 tiger tanks participating in the battle. the front 331, 314 and 008 were all ambushed and destroyed. the middle 304 realized that something was wrong and backed out of the battlefield at full speed. however, wittmann's 007 was hit by fire from the left side of the road, which is the lower left side of the map. the ammunition rack exploded and the entire crew was killed. it was really a pity!

i mentioned the dragon's 6800 late-stage command tiger in this article (about a foreign netizen criticizing a 48-scale leopard model~)

(the above picture is a screenshot of the article)

in this article, i mentioned that dragonair's 6800 is currently the most accurate box piece for the 101st ss heavy armored battalion, also known as tiger 007, because dragonair referred to some expert information.

dragonair got everything right on the cover this time. no. 314 on the side did participate in the final battle, and the 3rd company used a blue font for the number. however, there is no consensus on whether 007 should be in yellow or white font, but the yellow font is more likely.

mr. yann, a friend and teacher of the blogger, has done a complete study on the 101st/501st heavy armored battalion of the ss. here are some of his inferences about the 007. the dragonair/dragon model was based on his information to launch the 6800 007 tiger.

the final battle between tiger 007 and wittmann is quite fascinating, but for a long time, there has been a lot of wrong information about wittmann on chinese internet platforms in china. therefore, the official account itself published and commissioned articles to correct some of the wrong information.

the exclusive information i bring to you this time is that the legendary french farmer still has the fragments of tiger 007 in his barn. with the permission of the visiting photographer, who is also a member of the blogger's discussion group, jones, i will share with you the exclusive photos of the fragments of tiger 007, taken by jones.