The Story of Germany's Most Terrifying Tank Ace | Battlefield Mysteries | Timeline

[Music] [Music] [Music] in august 1944 a great tank battle was fought on these fields one of the men killed in the action was germany's highest scoring panzer race michael whitman was known as the black baron he had killed 138 tanks and he was a hero of the third reich [Music] like the death of the red baron in the first world war there's been some controversy over who killed michael whitman we have come back to this battlefield in normandy to re-examine the evidence and determined who killed michael [Music] whitman [Music] this is where the remains of michael whitman were found in 1983 and of course a lot of groups have claimed that they killed michael whitman the british claim that they have done it quite frankly quite pleased so i got rid of it there's rumors that a typhoon aircraft came in and killed him it was found with the turret blown off only a typhoon could have done that and there's some that say the canadians got them [Music] i believe the sherbrookes did knock out michael whitmer to resolve the mystery of who killed michael whitman we're going to have to look at the battlefield and analyze it we're going to have to look at the armor of both sides and we're going to look at the men who fought in the battles in normandy this is the men of the sherbrookes the northamptonshire yeomanry and of course the german panzer corps and the most famous is michael whitman germany's top panzer race [Music] michael whitman is born in 1914 and grows up a farm boy with ambition of greater things at 19 he joins the military quickly makes his way up through the ranks by the war's outbreak in 1939 he is serving in the fuhrer's own elite guard the leap standard adolf hitler of the waffen ss commanding a self-propelled gun he quickly distinguishes himself on the battlefield earning a reputation as a fearless leader but this is only the beginning from michael whitman in the spring of 1943 he is given command of one of germany's most fearsome weapons the tiger tank [Music] assigned to the eastern front whitman's bold tactics claim an impressive 56 tanks and artillery pieces in just over six months by the end of january 1944 his overall tally soars to an amazing 100 kills his exploits become headline news throughout germany dubbed the black baron by both friend and foe in february whitman is decorated by hitler himself but for all the accolades his greatest victory still lies ahead battling the allied invasion force on the western front [Music] june 6 1944 the allies launched their invasion of normandy the german high command quickly orders four divisions forward to reinforce the normandy front including the second company the 101st ss panzer battalion now commanded by michael whitman on june 13th as a column of british armor rolls in to occupy the village of villa bokage the black baron pulls up just outside town i'm with daniel taylor who's an expert on the battle of hitler's book cash and he's going to explain what happened on june 13th 1944. so what was happening here with whitman's tigers well they'd found themselves in this little lane they'd been advancing from belgium for about five or six days the unit was strung out across hundreds of miles they managed to get here with five tanks place presents pretty good cover so they're encamped along this lane yeah just first along it yes so what happens in the morning well uh in the morning uh whitman's roused by the uh the sound of tanks coming along the road so they're literally what 200 yards away about that he'd have seen as the turrets run along that line right up on top of here up there yes okay so now whitman what's his reaction to this well he's got very few options left open to him there's probably an argument about what he should have done but what he decided to do was attack [Music] across the field first shot takes out a firefly he's hitting him from like 50 yards if that yes point blank right he's not going to miss the rest of his unit is to try to engage a squadron up on the top of the hill you can see there and he's come across the field and he runs into a column of transport they all start bursting into flame so now he's going to drive into town and he's leaving dead and burnt out vehicles behind him so the guys in the village do they know what's going to hit him absolutely not no it's going to be a big rude surprise to them any second now so bitten's come down is run into these four cromwell tanks which you think might have a bit of a chance against him he managed to get a couple of shots off at the tiger before his t's taken out they just bounce off so they're bouncing off at about 50 yards no distance at all the following cromwell has pulled behind this wall and pulled into the courtyard of that building right that's commanded by a captain dyers i suddenly saw this tiger tank shooting down the main street i got the driver to reverse our tank to a farmyard and in the next moment to my astonishment with no gunner in our gunner seat the tiger went right in front of me unfortunately for the cromwell the gunners just got out to have a pee and so there's no way that he can fire so he's missed the glorious chance glorious charts the tigers passing side on right in front of him no way of firing the tiger then passes on turns into the high street another target rush environment [Music] whitman's rampage claims a total of 12 tanks and 15 other vehicles all in a little under 10 minutes deciding not to push his luck any further he retreats back through the village so how many tanks and uh soft-skinned vehicles did he get credited for this attack well the germans credited him with with an entire regiment [Music] [Music] [Applause] whitman's attack on the british is a huge gamble that pays off with it he single-handedly breaks the allies momentum and stalls their advance out of normandy for his actions of viller bokage the black baron is once again decorated by adolf hitler the ambitious farm boy has now become a living legend but whitman's luck is running out in less than two months the third reich's mighty black baron will be dead leaving behind an enduring mystery surrounding his death [Music] june 13 1944 panzer commander michael whitman makes military history with a daring solo attack on a british armored column at the norman village of viler bokage his actions that day stall the allied advance on the strategic town of khan and it takes nearly two more months of bloody combat in the surrounding area to finally drive the germans out [Music] we're on the road south of calm going to the village of syntho the place of michael whitman's final battle throughout july 1944 the allies launched a number of offensives at kong finally capturing it and pushing into the fields to the south with some of the most severe fighting of the normandy campaign throughout july the allies advanced a very short distance with tremendous casualties no one suffered worse than the tankers and in one month of battle more than 400 allied tanks were destroyed one of the first things we saw in normandy was an opt-out show and tank and it had gone up in flames as germans were infamous for exploding going into a sheet of flame 20 or 30 feet high the tank that we saw still had two or three of the crew sitting inside but no longer recognizable as human beings [Music] the germans used to call us tommy cookers because they burst weasley i'll become a fatalist overnight and i'm glad i did because i think that's the only way you could survive and one at that point realized that we were in tremendous danger because this was something that germans could obviously do with their great guns but the mayan thing was that they could knock out our tanks at a safe distance and we have not been informed in any way but this is the fate that waited us just up the road in your mind every german tank was a tiger because the tiger was a terror and if it was a tiger then you had to fight for your life each one of us said you know you had the jitters every time you saw the buggers because the gun was so much superior technically the range needed to knock out a tiger by a 75 was about two or three inches the shops from 75 were bouncing off like ping pong balls [Music] one thing we had an advantage was what we called a firefly it was still the normal sherman but the 75 millimeter gun which was about six panda had been replaced by a 17-pounder for the first time we realized we now had a tank which was equal to the tiger and we were able to believe it august 7th 1944 more than 25 000 british and canadian troops assemble for operation totalize a major offensive devise to crack the german defensive line south of khan unlike previous operations totalize is planned as a night assault to confuse the germans and limit their response it begins at midnight august 8th the initial attack is a success and in less than four hours the allies break through the german lines and begin advancing south progress in the dark is slow for some units while others like the northamptonshire yeomanry and the sherbrooke fusiliers proceed quickly to their objectives isolated from the main force they dig in for the inevitable german counter-attack and so it is in the early hours of august 8th the stage is set for the allies final confrontation with a black baron the northamptonshire yeomanry were one of two units involved in the killing of michael whitman and to recreate what happened to whitman we have to find out exactly where they were now we know that in 1944 they hid in the orchard south of saint ano but in 60 years a lot of things have changed for example the orchards aren't there anymore so we're going to have to try to determine where they were this is also true of the sherbert's position and it's going to be a little challenging to try to find out exactly where everybody was [Music] right now we're on a small country road south of saint anya and by 8 a.m the omery were on their objective which was the village they discharged their infantry they moved south into these woods and they built defensive positions in case there was a german counter-attack today there's uh no orchards and very little woods but this whole area was wooded in 1944 and from here they got a commanding view of the area to the south and to the west you can see the root nationale over here and the germans were further south but as the yeomanry were digging in the canadians were also advancing west of the root national so what we're going to do is we're going to uh go by the canadian cemetery and just a little bit north of it is gumesnell which is a very very small hamlet and this is where where the sherbert's set up we know it was in a stone wall around an old chateau here's looks like our wall so this is our first entrance of the goombas nil so we'll go right into the middle of the hamlet and we'll ask where this chateau was [Music] so this is the eastern outskirts of the hamlet of gomez nil and we're right on the root nationale you can see the cars coming by they're ruining our battlefield so what i'm looking for is an old wall that belonged to an old chateau and there's a lot of old stuff around here here [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] so what's happened is the uh old chateau was just north of here and that the wall came around was a huge wall that went up to this area around about 30 meters down that way then down to the the main road then at the end of the war the chateau burnt down apparently a bunch of english soldiers got drunk and uh they the thing caught fire so this is the correct wall i want to see if i can get inside there to see exactly what the sherberts could see on the day of the battle when i got through here so that certainly looks like the wall we're looking for if you look over here you can actually see the work of the sherbrookes you can see the holes over there those are sherman size holes and that's where they would have broken through you can also see where they knocked down the wall to firing height and of course this is where they set up some of their defensive positions it gave them an incredible field of fire and if the germans wanted to attack from syntho north the sherbrookes had them so based on the description the sherbrookes were hiding behind here but what's really exceptional about this is that it was so well hidden that no one even knew they were here and even the histories of the war afterwards don't mention anything about the sherbrooke's being here walters had picked such a superb position that no one was ever going to find him but what he didn't know was that about a mile away to the south at the village of syntho the ss are having their little conference their ops group and they're planning a counter-attack and one of the men that's going to be in the counter-attack is michael whitman the germans the situation is critical operation totalize has broken their defensive line decimating an entire division in the process now it threatens to cut off all remaining german units in normandy they have no choice but to strike back without delay to halt the allied advance kurt meyer commanding the 12th ss division is ordered to launch a counter-attack near the root nationale faced with overwhelming odds meyer calls upon the one man capable of turning the tide the black baron [Music] we're in the northern end of the village of syntho and on august 8 1944 it was where the germans made their plans to do something about the breakthrough of totalize so right in this area kurt meyer met with michael whitman and other officers to discuss what measures were going to be taken for the counter-attack their main concern was a series of canadian tanks back over the ridge he saw the massing he knew they were going to have a large offensive coming very quickly so he ordered whitman to take his tigers as well as some other tanks and some sp guns to come and hit the canadians sort of like what he did at villar's book cash get out there quick and try to put them in disarray and buy some time for the germans so at 11 30 he shook hands with meyer and he went to his tigers at 12 30 they had launched her attack [Music] the plan called for five tanks to come across this field and two to go on the other side of the route national their objective was to get over the hill and hit the canadian tanks that were masking there the second phase of operation totalize [Music] it takes them about 10 minutes to get into this area and bang the first tiger gets hit in the meantime whitman is over by the root nationale he must have seen this because his radio communication goes [Music] the second tank goes up it's brood completely up in the air the third tank is disabled because they've hit the wheels in the track and it's trying to get out and it's retreating in fact it goes backwards across this field and bang it goes up so in a few minutes the field is all burning wreckage the men are climbing out of the turrets they're bringing their wounded they're trying to get out of here before they're shot down and as they go by they see tiger number zero zero seven and it's not moving and its turret is askew to the east in the aftermath no one is sure exactly what has become of the black baron he simply declared missing an action at the time the only clues to his fate or a few scattered reports from surviving german tankers when i looked out to the left i saw that michael's tank wasn't moving the turret was displaced to the right and tilted down to the front somewhat when i got to within about 250 to 300 meters as the flames suddenly shoot from the tank and the turret fly off and fall to the ground these accounts would remain unsubstantiated for decades until a photo of the battlefield taken by a french farmer in 1945 confirmed at least some of the details surrounding the destruction of tiger007 since then more and more evidence has been surfacing in the field near gosmanil ready oh so this is uh remarkable to actually touch the pieces of our investigation this is the real thing they would talk through uh this part so they talked to their throat and it would go out it's quite unique to the germans wow look at that this is uh an 88 armored piercing shell so this is where the charge is and they load it in the gun go wait wait wait that's why the tiger was deadly with me [Music] so this is a rocket fired from a typhoon that was found at a similar time as they they dug up these pieces from the tiger this uh gives us another dimension of uh who could possibly have killed michael whitman [Music] these relics from tiger007 provide the first pieces of tangible evidence linking battlefield accounts with a photo of whitman's wrecked tank in the field near gosmania but they still have yet to reveal what became of the black baron himself and more importantly who it was that fired the fatal shot to find answers norm christie must reconstruct the battlefield first by pinpointing the precise location where whitman's tank was destroyed so we're on the battlefield of august 8 1944 right beside the root nationale michelle uh uh qatar [Music] what michelle has told us is that they found a few remains just below the surface here first some on top a few fragments of bones and then they called the german war graves in and they started to dig and they dug down and found more remains they found panzer tanker uniforms identity discs a pistol that belonged to michael whitman found here so they came to the conclusion that the remains found here were the collective remains of tiger 007 which was whitman's tank for the attack on august 8th so now we know out of the four tigers that were destroyed on this field that the one here belonged to michael whitman but the question remains as to who fired the fatal shot having established the positions of the allied units norm will attempt to resolve whether it was yeomanry or the sherbrookes that kill the black baron here we have the positions of the sherbrookes we know that they were located just behind the chateau and of course we know what the human were over there at st so we have that position and this position which was the the pinchers that caught the tiger attack so now using some aerial photographs taken in 1944 we can actually piece together the history of what happened to michael whitman on august 8 1944 germany's greatest tank commander michael whitman was killed in this field so far norm christie has pinpointed the positions of the british and canadian forces along with the final location of whitman's tank now using aerial reconnaissance photos from 1944 he will determine once and for all who killed the black baron i'm with yan juo and he's an expert on the battlefield here here syntho and he's going to help us put together the mystery of michael whitman let's look at what we got this is the original photograph so this show see how it was before now this area has changed quite a lot hasn't it yes yes in launchpad yeah but we do have the fields where the where the four tigers were yeah that's we're okay there that's where whitman's remains were found yeah and that's the road yeah and that's what surge's photograph of 007 was taken that's 1945. so the other part is where the omer we were now what's changed in this area particularly the orchards there to the right of whitman's group right uh most of them have gone disappeared completely so we don't know exactly where they were but we can do it within 50 yards oh yes so the next piece is of course the sherbrookes now that chateau and the wall uh a lot of that's all gone now right the sure bricks are going to be the challenge because we also don't know which sherbert took the shots so let's go set it up and try to recreate this battle that really took place in about what 10-12 minutes oh yeah let's go get the surveyor and find out what really happened [Music] okay [Music] so this is the position where double 07 was knocked out this was whitman's tank and this is where we're going to start our investigation so we're going to analyze the field from really uh the line of sight yes from the various positions to see what they could actually see and then we're going to use surveying and gps to do the rest to get our distances so we can ask vinson to set this as our original point point zero and then we'll go out and find the locations of the other tigers over here so we'll head out let's see the one that was due east first right using the aerial photographs from 1944 norm plots the field positions of the four wrecked tigers the omen reclaims that their gunner joe etkins took out whitman along with two others a remarkable feat to say the least norm is returning to the yeomanry's position south of centennial to examine the battlefield from there to test the validity of the british claim [Music] so let's look at it so we got synthol over here boom is nil okay and we've got the omery over here all set up nicely dug in so now they're ready for any counter-attack should there be one and of course the germans usually did very quickly [Music] we were by midday aware that the germans had got to come they couldn't leave us there any longer there were four certainly four tigers which came down on what would have been our side of the main road i saw these three targets come in across in front of us about 1200 yards away my tongue commander told us to wait till they get to about 800 yards [Music] always now starting to get a bit itchy the tongue commander said advanced driver and we pull out a cover as we pull out a cover he says target the rear target can't see very much um you're looking through a periscope that big at 800 yards i mean they're only that they're tiny you know i farted as we were reversing back into cover i'd look around at the second tank i was probably more frightened but i was sort of thinking to get the bastards before they get away [Music] one shot at the second tank in line they immediately blew up the third one the third one definitely will melt around looking for cover [Music] as soon as i was ready to farm the omen ray are here they claim there's three tigers coming up and they hit all three of them so what's the danger area for a firefly how far can they shoot effectively effectively they would shoot at 800 meters i would say they could shoot at as far as uh 1200 meters but from here that would be a very very lucky shot right um i think we're looking at fitment style there right was about a kilometer away so that's what last has been solved can you give me the third one 700 and 67 meters and the second one we did 700 54 meters is 754 so that's this one that's that one there 754 how far to tank one 700 75 775 so that's within 800 that's that's a good distance for a firefly now how far is the whitman one 900 67 967 so it's almost almost a kilometer so 1100 yards which was at the very very top of the of the range for the gun there are several things to consider these three tigers here in the line are the closest to the uh to this place here where yeah north i'm sure your memory was located so it would make sense for them to have taken them out first anyway because they are within 800 meters so from here you would see those three tigers very clearly on the horizon as they came across but whitman is over the rise down towards that white building over there gum is nil you know maybe a lucky shot would go through maybe a very skilled shot but that would mean they got four tigers yeah so that doesn't fit with the belief that what the ominou got that day you can see why the three tigers would be sitting ducks but the fourth one would be quite a challenge [Music] norm christie's investigation into who killed the black baron has pinpointed the positions of all the tiger tanks destroyed near synthol on august 8th 1944 and his analysis of the british human race position south of centennial has brought their claim into question he's now traveling to gosmanil to locate the position of the canadian tanks and survey the battlefield from their perspective to determine whether they could have fired the kill shot [Music] so these are the grounds of the old chateau right yes now the wall that surrounded it most of the northern part is gone but the southern part is still there we found that the other day so we know that the sherbrooke's came into this area now your aerial photograph shows that they made holes in some of the walls that were on the root national which of course is right here there's about two big holes we can see this uh wall one would be uh right in front of us back here and the other one would be a bit further to the left on that side we came here earlier to try to find out or look for proof that the sherberts were here and we found small marks but we didn't realize at the time how much of the wall was missing and specifically that there were breaks in the walls facing facing east towards where the tigers would have advanced there was a couple right on the road and it was from that general area that the first german tanks came out from syntho right away i can remember the wireless net becoming active i can see them i can see them there's some tanks coming with my eyes i could see the tank closest to the road about 200 yards i get i didn't fire at him other people from my squad were firing at it now i don't recall the actual tank blowing up by somebody firing at him i can remember a tremendous explosion and seeing the turret hit the ground are you surprised to see how close we are to whitman's tank yes i am indeed yeah uh because even when you look at the aerial photograph it's um it doesn't seem uh so close and we are actually standing in the field looking over from this side to where pittman's tank was destroyed certainly looks very close indeed so let's ask finn song exactly how far we are from whitman's tank so van saw can you give me a distance to tiger number one whitman's 100 and 40 strangers 143 meters that's incredibly close so we have this situation we know where his tank was just over here so we have the sherbert's positions here and they're shooting in that direction towards whitman's tank now you have a schematic of it i showed a uh drawing of a tiger and says was actually able to draw the uh precise area where he uh observed a big impact okay which was located on the uh left forward cooling grid so this is left rear of whitman's tank so your trajectory would be very low here yes it was you're so close so it's most likely then that would come from this position yes [Music] and then it went in and gradually it ignited the fuel and the ammunition and the turret blew off that's amazing i'm surprised we're this close i thought we'd be around 500 meters and now we're 150. so really it almost has to be the canadians can you think of any alternative well uh machiavellian who took the photograph that we see here he's actually suggested that it could have been a typhoon rocket uh because he photographed an unexploded typhoon rocket that was lying nearby the tank the reason i would doubt it is a typhoon rocket is uh that a they were rebuilt fire and were very accurate it would be very difficult to hit a tank the second thing is that the uh trifle rocket has several pounds worth of explosive and if the rocket hit the tiger the rear of the tiger would be blown apart right so you wouldn't be able to see the hole in one side there's no there's no evidence of really burning no no there's just no proof that it happens unlikely so we're left with really one thing here looking idiot sherbert's sherbrooke's had to do it yes having examined the battlefield from the german british and canadian positions it's now possible for the first time to reconstruct the battle of synthol and accurately recreate the attack that killed german panzer ace michael whitman [Music] it is now clear that joe eckens from his position near centennial did destroy three tigers but it's difficult to believe edkins could have fired the shot that killed whitman especially in the face of strong evidence that indicates that the fatal shot came from the direction of the canadian tanks at ghost minion a position only 143 meters in the black barons tiger [Music] uh following the battle of santho the allies push further south continuing their advance against the remaining german units defending normandy in just 80 days they completely encircled the retreating german army the battle of normandy is all but over in all one hundred thousand men lose their lives including fifty thousand german soldiers this is la cam german cemetery in normandy and it's the largest german cemetery in normandy and it contains 21 000 graves including two of the tiger commanders killed august 8 1944. this is really irion he was the commander of one of the tigers knocked out going across the field and you can see it's a collective grave with some of his crew members here these are always just partial remains because of the fire inside the tank as they say brewed up and there'd be very little after the battle to even bury one tanker told me the story of burying his crew they buried them in a mess tin you can always tell whitman's grave because it's surrounded by flowers since the war whitman has become legendary there are websites dedicated to him and this is all very nice but we should not forget what he fought for sometimes we have a tendency to romanticize these people when they're really fighting for adolf hitler this is whitman's collective grave here and this is where his partial remains were put in 1983 they had a large ceremony and whitman's widow came to it and they honored him and they continued to honor him michael whitman lived his life on the edge he became famous because his willingness to take risks to take advantage of opportunities but for him to make that charge towards the canadians on hill 112 was suicide have a feeling that pittman had been in the war so long that when it got to that point they were realizing that the wall was lost and whether his last thoughts as he went down the road were simply val heller here i come the sherbrookes did knock out michael whitman and you didn't make very much of it and none of us knew who the hell this guy was he accepted the doctrines of hitler enough to get in his tank and invade other people's countries left country after country [Music] anybody who goes into another person's country to kill is a criminal i'm afraid he might have been a hero to the germans worked not to me

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

Views: 734,526

Rating: 4.7678771 out of 5

Keywords: History, Full Documentary, Documentaries, Full length Documentaries, Documentary, TV Shows - Topic, Documentary Movies - Topic, 2017 documentary, BBC documentary, Channel 4 documentary, history documentary, documentary history

Id: hn-t2JjHny0

Length: 46min 56sec (2816 seconds)

Published: Thu May 21 2020