Chapter 417: Chaos in the Woods

The British were not without armored forces near Norwich. On the contrary, they had an armored brigade stationed there. This was a key reaso

The British were not without armored forces near Norwich. On the contrary, they had an armored brigade stationed there. This was a key reason why Montgomery had felt confident enough to position his only armored corps south of London.

However, this armored brigade had been unable to reach the beaches to intercept the German landing force by the morning of the second day. The main reason was that the brigade had been subjected to the most concentrated bombing by the German air force.

After being savaged by both Stuka and Stuka Type 2 attack aircraft, the British Norwich Armoured Brigade had lost one-third of its strength. Lacking anti-aircraft weapons, they had struggled to advance on the open roads and had only managed to reach their designated operational positions late the previous night.

A subsequent small-scale tank encounter had boosted the poorly trained brigade’s confidence. They had ambushed two German Panzer III tanks on either side of a small road, scoring the first armored victory for the British on home soil. Afterwards, they advanced along the road, searching for more targets, but were forced to switch to a defensive posture at dawn.

“The two tanks from the 5th Light Panzer Division lost contact not far from this road?” Wittmann asked, lowering his binoculars and pressing the throat microphone to speak to the commander of the armored reconnaissance vehicle next to him.

A clear reply came through his headset: “Yes, sir. They were responsible for scouting ahead to secure the defensive positions here, but it’s clear the two idiots underestimated the enemy…”

“Since they underestimated the enemy, we won’t make the same mistake,” Wittmann said. He glanced at the combat map spread out beside his elbow, frowned in thought, and then switched communication channels. “Driver, take us off the road. We’ll circle around behind these bushes and see what’s on the sides of the road.”

Wittmann was a battle-hardened veteran and would not be as reckless as a novice. He carefully examined the terrain on both sides of the road and, connecting that with the two missing tanks, was able to piece together what had likely happened.

Two tanks being destroyed was clearly not something British infantry could have accomplished. And the fact that no message was sent and no one escaped meant that the two tanks were destroyed in quick succession. Only a British armored unit could have done that, and they had to be in significant numbers. It couldn’t have been a chance encounter, because no matter how foolish the German tankers were, they wouldn’t engage in a head-on duel with a large number of enemy tanks on a road. That left only one possibility—the British tanks were lying in ambush on both sides of the road.

Wittmann had a habit of calling his driver “Driver.” Following his command, the tank with the number 007 painted on its side crashed through a few small bushes and drove from the road into the adjacent woodland.

As the tank moved slowly along a forest path, Wittmann leaned against the commander’s hatch, staring into the misty distance, lost in thought. He hated this kind of fog; it nullified the range advantage of the Tiger tank’s formidable 88mm long-barreled cannon.

Just as his intuition told him something was wrong, he spotted a young soldier in a British armored car staring foolishly at him from a short distance away. The two of them reacted at almost the same instant. Wittmann ducked into the turret, shouting orders for the gun to be aimed, while the British scout was simultaneously trying to traverse his own vehicle’s turret.

Boom! The Tiger tank fired a single shot, instantly turning the nearby British armored reconnaissance vehicle into a pile of scrap metal. As the Tiger continued to advance, one British tank after another came into its view.

These American M3 Lee tanks were all facing the road, their vulnerable side armor perfectly exposed to Wittmann’s Tiger. Most importantly, apart from the first British tank, which was slowly beginning to turn its turret, the rest of the tanks seemed to be completely stationary.

Seeing this, Wittmann immediately abandoned any thought of retreating. His heart, which longed to surpass Rein, began to beat at its fastest rhythm. “Full speed ahead! Aim for the first tank! Fire! Hull machine gun, fire at will! Engage any targets you see!”

Boom! The Tiger fired its second shot of the day. The shell punched straight through the side armor of a British tank, hit the engine, ignited the gasoline inside, passed through the armor on the other side, and then penetrated the side armor of a second tank before finally coming to a stop.

The first and second tanks exploded violently, instantly becoming a massive fireball. Their turrets were blown high into the air, crashing into a large tree nearby and snapping off several of its branches.

The Tiger continued to advance, then came to a sharp halt at an opportune moment. Another shell flew from its muzzle, tearing through a third British tank. The ridiculous thing was that these tanks, which were hidden in the woods to avoid German bombers, still showed no sign of movement, as if they were prisoners lined up waiting to be executed.

Wittmann had no time to think. He preferred to believe it was his own commanding presence that had frozen these British tanks in place, so he just kept shouting the two words: “Stop!” and “Fire!”

This time, I’ve really struck gold, Wittmann thought to himself. He had always envied Rein for his opportunity to single-handedly face dozens of French tanks. Now, Lady Luck had finally smiled upon him, granting him his own moment of glory.

Boom! Another British tank was turned into scrap. The German tank had already destroyed a full 10 tanks on its rampage, and the British had still not managed to mount even a single counter-attack. Even Wittmann himself felt that this couldn’t be explained by luck alone.

It was only then that Wittmann and his crew realized why these British tanks had not reacted to the slaughter. Through his commander’s periscope, he saw the British tank crews in the distance, running towards the remaining vehicles.

“Haha! They were resting? They weren’t in their tanks?” Wittmann shouted excitedly. “Stop them from getting to their vehicles! We’re in between them!” He had every reason to be excited. His Tiger was now positioned between the British tank crews and their tanks. Everything seemed to be in his favor.

The slaughter continued. The hull machine gun at the front of the Tiger began to spit fire. One after another, the British tankers were cut down, a storm of steel separating them from their vehicles.

It was then that Wittmann realized they were actually in the middle of two rows of British vehicles: a row of tanks closer to the road, and a row of numerous armored cars and trucks further back. As Wittmann was trying to process the sheer size of the British force he had stumbled into, his tank had already destroyed its 15th enemy tank.

The British had clearly not expected a German tank to circle around from the flank. They had posted armored cars as sentries and set up their tanks in a defensive line along the road, then blithely allowed the rest of their personnel to set up camp and rest.

Moreover, these British troops had failed to grasp the scale of the German attack. They heard explosion after explosion but didn’t know which direction the shells were coming from, nor could they tell if it was bombing or artillery fire. The bewildered commander of the Norwich Armoured Brigade issued a laughable order: he commanded his troops to get back in their tanks and retreat two kilometers.

In reality, the British had arranged their armored vehicles in four rows along the road, two on each side. The tanks were set up in ambush positions, and behind them, further from the road, were the armored cars and trucks. The tanks Wittmann was currently slaughtering were just a portion of the brigade’s vehicles parked on one side of the road.

Boom! Wittmann’s tank fired again, blowing the turret off another British tank. This was the 22nd British tank they had knocked out in just over ten minutes. Unfortunately for the British, they still had not managed to organize an effective counter-attack. If nothing unexpected happened, Wittmann was about to break the single-battle kill record of 23 tanks set by Raine in the Battle of the Pass.

“We can’t break through this British armored force! They have too many tanks and vehicles, at least a regiment! At least a regiment! We have to retreat! We must retreat!” Although Wittmann was exhilarated by the killing, he had not forgotten his predicament. He knew that once the enemy reacted, he would be swarmed and killed in this nameless forest, no matter how skilled he was. He roared into the intercom, giving his crew the order to retreat. “Circle around the side! We have to get back to our own lines! Quickly!”

At the same moment he shouted his command, a British tank crewman was also yelling into his radio: “There’s only one German tank! Stop him! Stop him! It’s not artillery, it’s not a bombing! It’s a German attack! There’s only one tank! Damn it! Someone stop him!”

Of course, today, luck belonged to Wittmann and his Tiger 007. Just as his tank was turning around, two British tanks managed to start up and charge straight into his line of fire.

Boom! The Tiger, which had just stopped to turn, did not miss the opportunity. It fired one shot, penetrating the first tank’s frontal armor and turning the poor, newly started vehicle into a wreck. The thick smoke from the burning tank obscured the vision of the tank behind it. Wittmann’s tank completed its turn and, unhurriedly, circled around to the other side, towards the rows of armored cars and trucks, and began a new round of slaughter.

Machine-gun fire tore into the fuel drums behind the trucks, turning them into deadly explosives. The British soldiers scrambled for cover amidst the fireballs and the Tiger’s machine-gun fire, like rats scurrying for safety. As he fled, Wittmann continued to add to his tank’s kill count. A new tank god was, step by step, creating his own new legend.