August 8, 1944. Western Front
On this day in 1944, German panzer ace Michael Wittmann and his entire crew are killed after being ambushed by Allied tanks in Normandy.
On 8 August 1944, Anglo-Canadian forces launched Operation Totalize. Under the cover of darkness, British and Canadian tanks and soldiers seized the tactically important high ground near the town of Saint-Aignan-de-Cramesnil. Here they paused, awaiting an aerial bombardment that would signal the next phase of the attack. Unaware of the reason the Allied forces had halted, Kurt Meyer, of the SS Hitlerjugend Division, ordered elements of his command to counterattack and recapture the high ground.
Wittmann led a group of seven Tiger tanks, from the Heavy SS-Panzer Battalion 101, supported by additional tanks and infantry. His group of Tigers, crossing open terrain towards the high ground, was ambushed by tanks from A Squadron 1st Northamptonshire Yeomanry, A Squadron Sherbrooke Fusilier Regiment, and B Squadron 144th Regiment Royal Armoured Corps. During the ambush, anti-tank shells – fired from either the British or Canadian tanks – penetrated the upper hull of Wittmann’s tank, igniting the ammunition. The resulting fire engulfed the tank and blew off the turret. The crew of the destroyed tank were buried in an unmarked grave. In 1983, the German war graves commission located the burial site. Wittmann and his crew were reinterred together at the La Cambe German war cemetery in France.
Source: Wikipedia