No Glider, it is you who should check the details.
The British tank collumn (Containing a Firefly btw) was destroyed singlehandedly by Wittmann's Tiger, after this massacre he then continued into a nearby town and this is where he got into trouble - Urban areas isn't tank country.
From the site you linked:
Had it been any other man than Wittmann, and had he been commanding any other vehicle that the powerful Tiger I, the attack would have been seen as bordering on the suicidal. But Wittmann was both faster and more wily than the enemy; the Tiger rolled on relentlessly while enemy shells simply bounced off its thick armour plate. The first enemy vehicles Wittmann encountered were the two at the rear of the column, a Cromwell and a Sherman Firefly; by disabling these two tanks Wittmann had blocked off the exit for the remaining vehicles, which in turn allowed him to make it next move which was to head back up the column towards Villers Bocage. Meanwhile, two further Tigers from Wittmann's company made their way up to Hill 213.
As Wittmann's Tiger charged relentlessly towards them, the 'A' Sqn. crews - who had at the time been quietly enjoying a cup of tea and a cigarette at the side of the road - found themselves caught completely by surprise. They had little or no time to return to their vehicles, let alone manoeuvre them into any sort of position where they could have taken on the fearsome Tiger. Scattering and running for the nearest protection, the British crewmen abandoned their stricken vehicles, some of which still had their engines running. The Tiger's loader, SS-Sturmmann Günther Boldt, had to work like a man possessed to keep with this tremendous rate. Woll then grabbed his MG34, peppering the scout car which had been standing next to the head half-track with a hail of bullets.
While the bow machine gunner's relentless MG34 fire prevented any of the British crewmen from emerging from their hiding places, Wittmann turned his attention to the array of vehicles conveniently lined up along the side of the road. Two Cromwells and a Firefly were knocked out, before the fearsome 88mm KwK was turned on the first of the lighter tracked vehicles belonging to the 1st Rifle Brigade. On noting the ease by which these vehicles were destroyed, the remaining number were taken out with heavy fire from the pair of MG34s operated by Woll and bow gunner SS-Sturmmann Jonas. In all, by now a staggering fifteen vehicles and two 6-pounder anti tank guns were reduced to burning wrecks. Wittmann's Tiger now headed down Rue Georges Clémenceau towards the town of Villers Bocage itself, destroying three M3 Stuart 'Honey' light tanks belonging to the reconnaisance troop along thw way.
Enters the city
On entering the Villers Bocage, Wittmann encountered the four vehicles belonging to Regimental HQ. Three of these tanks were quickly taken out, including the two decoy command vehicles - Wittmann of course was not to know that these vehicles were not armed. Woll then slammed another 88mm shell into the scout car belonging to the RHQ Intelligence Officer, with the panicking infantry being showered by deadly shrapnel. Wittmann himself then grabbed the MG34 mounted on his cupola, and joined his gunner in razing the remaining half-track, that belonging to the medical officer. The disabled vehicle was blown into the middle of the road, preventing any throughway.
Not content with this, Wittmann relentlessly continued his advance, rolling westwards on the gently sloping road towards the centre of Villers-Bocage. Only a small number of enemy vehicles had managed to escape the initial barrage, among them the remaining Cromwell of the Regimental HQ of the 4th CLY commanded by Captain Patrick Dyas - who had intelligently backed his vehicle into a secluded side street. By this time 'B' Sqn., located west of Villers, had been alerted to the Tiger's presence.
As Wittmann's Tiger now moved cautiously towards the centre of town, it passed the side street where the Cromwell of Captain Dyas had been lurking; shortly after seeing the German vehicle rumble past up Rue Georges Clémenceau (today Rue Pasteur), Dyas rolled out after it, a scene witnessed by Lieutenant John L. Cloudsley-Thompson, whose own command vehicle had been one of the the three Cromwells 'brewed up' by Wittmann's Tiger. As Cloudsley-Thompson nervously watched Dyas slowly follow Wittmann up the road, Wittmann's next encounter was with a Sherman Firefly belonging to 'B' Sqn., commanded by Sergeant Stan Lockwood which had turned into Rue Georges Clémenceau from the Place Jeanne d'Arc. Having sustained a light hit from the 17-pdr cannon of Lockwood's Firefly, Wittmann half-turned into a section of wall, causing the rubble to fall down upon the British vehicle.
Amid this confusion Captain Dyas, who had up to this point kept his Cromwell at a safe distance in following Wittmann's Tiger, seized the opportunity to have a crack at his much larger adversary. The brave Dyas did manage to get two 75mm shots off against the massive German vehicle, but instead of claiming his prize he saw both shells bounce harmlessly off the Tiger's thick armour. Dyas was not to get a second chance; with Wittmann now aware of the danger the Tiger's massive gun quickly turned itself on the now helpless and exposed British vehicle, and an accurate shot from Woll succeeded in blowing Dyas clean out of his cupola, leaving him dazed but unhurt. His gunner and driver were not so fortunate, however.
Having turned away from the threat posed by the advancing Cromwells of 'B' Sqn. to the west, Wittmann passed Dyas's burning vehicle and headed back down Rue Georges Clémenceau, whereupon his Tiger was struck on the tracks - its weakest point - by a shell from a British 6-pdr anti-tank gun located in a small side alleyway. Given the earlier exchanges with far heavier Allied weaponry, that the mighty Tiger was disabled by the comparatively lightweight 6-pdr was more than ironic. With one of the drive sprockets damaged by the shell, Wittmann's vehicle ground to a halt in front of the Huet-Godefroy clothes store. Knowing that further resistance was impossible, Wittmann and his crew exited their vehicle in the hope that it might be later retrieved, and succeeded in making their way some fifteen kilometers on foot back to the HQ of the Panzer Lehr Division at Chateau d'Orbois, where Wittmann provided a thorough briefing on the situation. Later that day, tanks belonging to the Panzer Lehr initiated their own counter-attack, accompanied by the 1st Company of the 101st LSSAH led by SS-Hauptsturmführer Rolf Möbius. By this time the element of surprise had been lost, however; there was to be no repeat of that morning's rout.
In all, Wittmann's own calculations amounted to a roll call of some twenty-one enemy tanks and an unspecified number of half-tracks, troop carriers and Bren gun carriers; in what what one of the most astonishing feats of arms during the war, he had more or less single-handedly prevented the British advance. Naturally, the German propaganda agencies had a field day, and bloated kill figures were naturally thrown about: Wittman was initially credited with the single-handed destruction of 27 of the 30 British tanks that had been destroyed. Ever after a more sober analysis however, Michael Wittmann's achievement at Villers-Bocage still stands out as highly significant in the annals of armoured warfare; in one short sortie his Tiger had destroyed a staggering twenty-seven enemy vehicles, including a dozen tanks - five Cromwells, two Sherman Fireflies, three Stuarts, and two commands vehicles, one a Cromwell and the other an M4A4 Sherman.
In all some thirty British tanks were destroyed in and around Villers-Bocage on the morning of 13 June, as well as an unspecified number of other vehicles. On the German side eleven tanks were knocked out or disabled, among them six Tigers including Wittmann's Nr. 222. Three of these six vehicles were later salvaged and repaired. While Michael Wittmann may not have won the battle single-handedly as the German propaganda bulletins at the time suggested, his bold and instinctive action was without doubt the catalyst for an action that had driven the enemy out of Villers-Bocage and left them reeling and on the defensive; it was one of the very few occasions on which the Germans would have any sort of ascendancy during these last two years of the war.
