101st SS Heavy Panzer Battalion

101st SS Heavy Panzer Battalion
Active 19 July 1943 – May 1945
Country Nazi Germany Nazi Germany
Allegiance Adolf Hitler
Branch Waffen SS
Size Battalion
Part of 1st SS Panzer Division "Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler"
I SS Panzer Corps
Equipment Tiger I, Tiger II
Commanders
Notable
commanders		 SS-Obersturmbannführer Heinz von Westernhagen
Insignia
Identification
symbol

101st SS Heavy Panzer Battalion (in German Schwere SS-Panzer-Abteilung 101, commonly abbreviated as s.SS-Pz. Abt. 101) was one of the Waffen-SS's elite armored units. With the introduction of new Tiger II tanks in late 1944, it was redesignated the 501st SS Heavy Panzer Battalion.

It was created on July 19, 1943, as a part of the I SS Panzer Corps, by forming two new heavy tank companies consisting of Tiger I tanks and incorporating the 13th (Heavy) Company of the 1st SS Panzer Regiment. It was attached to 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte and sent to Italy on August 23, 1943, where it stayed until mid-October. The 1st and 2nd company were then sent to the Eastern Front while the rest of the unit stayed in the West.

Normandy

SS-Sturmbannführer von Westernhagen at a practice in May 1944 near Beauvais

With the anticipated Allied invasion of Western Europe approaching, elements of the battalion in the East were ordered to the West in April 1944. On June 1, 1944, the battalion was located near Beauvais, north-west of Paris. Of its 45 Tigers, 37 were operational and eight more were under repair. With the D-Day landings on June 6, it was ordered to Normandy where it arrived on June 12. The battalion lost 15 of its 45 Tigers by July 5, including in the Battle of Villers-Bocage.

At this time the units' surplus crews began outfitting with the new Tiger II tanks. By August 7 the division left in Normandy with 25 Tigers of which 21 were operational. On August 8, 1944, three of their seven Tigers, committed to a counter-attack near Saint-Aignan-de-Cramesnil, were destroyed by British Sherman Fireflies, killing Michael Wittman. The battalion lost virtually all its remaining Tigers in the Falaise pocket and the subsequent German retreat from France.

On September 9, the remains of the unit were ordered to rest and refit with the new Tiger IIs. With this change on September 22, 1944, it was redesignated the 501st SS Heavy Panzer Battalion. On March 15, 1945, it reported a strength of 32 tanks, of which eight were operational.[1]

Knight's Cross recipients

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Jentz 1996, p. 247.

References


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