Wwii Tank Commander

[Daisy Hughlett]

In 2001, The Oldham County History Center joined with the Library of Congress and the AARP and began oral histories collected from veterans in our area. This oral history was conducted on Elmer R. Staib by Dennis Fritz on April 16, 2004. It was transcribed by Jan Jasper on June 2007.

Elmer R. Staib was born on Nov. 26, 1919. He attained the rank of captain and was a tank commander for the 610th Tank Battalion where he fought in the Battle of the Staib. He was awarded the Croix de Guerre with a silver star and the Bronze Star for his service. He was discharged in 1947.

I was a member of the 138th Field Artillery National Guard. We were called into active duty on Jan. 17, 1941, which was almost a year before Pearl Harbor Day, which was December the 7th, 1941. They called us in and we were supposed to do a year and come back home. Well, we almost had a year in, but then the war started and that kept me in a lot longer.

Well, you had a driver. You had an assistant driver who also handles the radio, and things like that. A loader to load the gun; you had a gunner to fire gun. And you had the tank commander to supervise all of that, and he is usually up in the turret doing this.

Patton was a great pusher, you know. He believed in not sitting still at all. None of this digging holes and staying there, you know, like they used to do in WWI, trench warfare or any that stuff. He believed in moving, moving, moving, which we did. We would get so far ahead that we were in danger of somebody coming in behind us.

Led most lethal tank attack
Capt. Michael Wittmann, German, World War II
Credited with destroying 138 tanks, 132 antitank guns, and uncounted other vehicles on the Russian front and at Normandy, SS-Hauptsturmfhrer Wittmann is best known for his rampage against the British 7th Armored Division outside Villers-Bocage in June 1944, devastating as many as 14 tanks, 2 antitank guns, and 15 other vehicles in 15 minutes. He was finally cornered and killed in his Tiger I tank by five British or Canadian Shermans on August 8, 1944.

Invented modern armored combined-arms doctrine
Lt. Gen. John Monash, Australian, World War I
As commander of Australian Corps, Monash deftly integrated well-coordinated artillery barrages, armor of the British 5th Tank Brigade, airplanes (for close support and to transport supplies to his front-line forces), and a reinforcing complement of American troops to take the French village of Le Hamel on July 4, 1918, in a surprising setback to the advancing Germans.

William Frederick Cody (1846-1917) led a signal life, from his youthful exploits with the Pony Express and in service as a U.S. Army scout to his globetrotting days as a showman and international icon Buffalo Bill.

This chart comes from another forum, where it was posted in response to a similar question. It gives the rank breakdown of tank crews in a late WWII Army medium tank company. Light tank crews had the same rank structure for tank commanders and a similar, though not identical, rank structure for the balance of the light tank crew (the M24 light tank had a 5-man crew, while the M5 light tank had a 4-man crew, omitting the cannoneer/assistant gunner).

Wittmann became a cult figure after the war thanks to his accomplishments as a "panzer ace" (a highly decorated tank commander), part of the portrayal of the Waffen-SS in popular culture. Historians have mixed opinions about his tactical performance in battle. Some praised his actions at Villers-Bocage, while many others found his abilities lacking, and the praise for his tank kills overstated.[1][2]

Although the number is disputed, he is credited with destroying 135 to 138 enemy tanks. German tank kills were recorded as a unit.[3] When he was presented with the Oak leaves to his Knights Cross by Hitler on 2 February 1944 his total was 117 tanks.[4]

Michael Wittmann was born in the village of Vogelthal, near Dietfurt in Bavaria's Upper Palatinate, on 22 April 1914. He enlisted in the German Army (Heer) in 1934 after the Nazi seizure of power.[5] Wittmann joined the Schutzstaffel (SS) in October 1936 and was assigned to the regiment, later division, Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH) on 5 April 1937. A year later, he participated in the annexation of Austria, the occupation of Sudetenland, and joined the Nazi Party.[6]

Wittmann's unit was transferred to the Eastern Front in the spring of 1941 for Operation Barbarossa, the planned invasion of the Soviet Union. He was assigned to SS Panzer Regiment 1, a tank unit, where he commanded a StuG III assault gun/tank destroyer as well as a Panzer III medium tank. By 1943, he commanded a Tiger I tank, and had become a platoon leader in the heavy company by the time Operation Citadel and the Battle of Kursk took place. Attached to the LSSAH, Wittmann's platoon of four Tigers reinforced the division's reconnaissance battalion to screen the division's left flank. On their first day in battle at Kursk, Wittmann and his crew scored eight tanks and seven anti-tank guns destroyed.[7] At one point, his tank survived a collision with a burning T-34.[8]

On 14 January 1944, Wittmann was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. The presentation was made by his divisional commander, SS-Oberfhrer Theodor Wisch, who nominated him for the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves.[10] Wittmann was awarded the Oak Leaves on 30 January for the destruction of 117 tanks, making him the 380th member of the German armed forces to receive it. He received the award from Adolf Hitler, who presented it to him at the Wolf's Lair, his headquarters in Rastenburg, on 2 February 1944.[11]

In April 1944, the LSSAH's Tiger Company was transferred to SS Heavy Panzer Battalion 101.[12] This battalion was assigned to the I SS Panzer Corps as a corps asset, and was never permanently attached to any division or regiment. Wittmann was appointed commander of the battalion's second company, and held the rank of SS-Obersturmfhrer.[13] On 7 June, the day after the Allied Invasion of Normandy began, the battalion was ordered to move from Beauvais to Normandy. The move, covering 165 km (105 miles), took five days to complete.[14][15]

Due to the Anglo-American advance south from Gold and Omaha Beaches, the German 352nd Infantry Division began to buckle. As the division withdrew south, it opened a 12 km (a 7.5-mile) gap in the front line near Caumont-l'vent.[17][18][19] Sepp Dietrich, commander of 1st SS Panzer Corps, ordered Heavy SS-Panzer Battalion 101, his only reserve, to position itself behind the Panzer Lehr Division and SS Division Hitlerjugend. From this position, the battalion could protect the developing open left flank.[20] Anticipating the importance the British would assign to the high ground near Villers-Bocage,[14] Wittmann's company was positioned near the town.[21] It arrived late on 12 June. Nominally composed of 12 tanks, his company was 50 per cent understrength with only six tanks due to losses and mechanical failures[13][22] on the hundred-mile road march from the assembly area at Beauvais.[23]

The next morning, lead elements of the British 7th Armoured Division entered Villers-Bocage. Their objective was to exploit the gap in the front line, seize Villers-Bocage, and capture the nearby ridge (Point 213) in an attempt to force a German withdrawal.[24][25][26][27][28] Wittman had not expected them to arrive so soon and had no time to assemble his company.[29] "Instead I had to act quickly, as I had to assume that the enemy had already spotted me and would destroy me where I stood." Having ordered the rest of the company to hold its ground, he set off with one tank.[30]

At approximately 09:00,[14] Wittmann's Tiger emerged from cover onto the main road, Route Nationale 175, and engaged the rearmost British tanks positioned on Point 213, destroying them.[31][32] Wittmann then moved towards Villers-Bocage, shooting several unarmed transport vehicles parked along the roadside; the carriers burst into flames as their fuel tanks were ruptured by machine gun and high explosive fire.[33][34] Moving into the eastern end of the town, he engaged several light tanks, followed by medium tanks.[35] Alerted to Wittmann's actions, light tanks in the middle of the town quickly got off the road, while medium tanks were brought forward.[13] Wittmann, meanwhile, had destroyed another British tank[36] and two artillery observation post (OP) tanks,[note 1][37] followed by a scout car and a half-track.[38]

Accounts differ slightly as to what happened next. Historians record that, after destroying the OP tanks, Wittmann duelled briefly without success with a Sherman Firefly before withdrawing.[39][40] His Tiger is then reported to have continued eastwards to the outskirts of the town before being disabled by an anti-tank gun.[41] However, Wittmann said his tank was disabled by an anti-tank gun in the town centre.[30]

In less than 15 minutes, 13 or 14 tanks, two anti-tank guns, and 13 to 15 transport vehicles had been destroyed by Heavy SS-Panzer Battalion 101, the majority[42] or all[43] attributed to Wittmann. He played no further role in the Battle of Villers-Bocage.[44] For his actions during the battle, Wittmann was promoted to SS-Hauptsturmfhrer, and awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords.[45]

The German propaganda machine swiftly credited Wittmann, by then a household name in Germany, with all the British tanks destroyed at Villers-Bocage.[45][46] He recorded a radio message on the evening of 13 June, describing the battle and claiming that later counter-attacks had destroyed a British armoured regiment and an infantry battalion.[30] Doctored images were produced; three joined-together photographs, published in the German army magazine Signal, gave a false impression of the scale of destruction in the town.[30] The propaganda campaign was given credence in Germany and abroad, leaving the British convinced that the Battle of Villers-Bocage had been a disaster. In fact, its results were less clear-cut.[46] The Waffen-SS may have fought with distinction during the Battle of Kursk but could not match the army's success, hence Sepp Dietrich's attempts to manufacture a hero out of Wittmann.[47]

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