To say that Wittman routed the entire 7th Armoured Division single-handedly is a colossal exaggeration, although it was one that was put about by Nazi propagandists shortly after the battle. The British forces at Villers-Bocage were elements of the 22nd Armoured Brigade, one of multiple brigades of 7th Armoured Division.

Specifically during Wittman's action, the British forces in Villers-Bocage consisted of A Squadron of the 4th County of London Yeomanry, a territorial army cavalry unit equipped with Cromwell tanks, with one Sherman Firefly per troop of 4, as well as infantry elements from 1st Rifle Brigade. At the time of Wittman's attack, the squadron and accompanying infantry had stopped and largely dismounted their vehicles. Wittman's attack was part of a wider German counterattack which caught 22nd AB strung out as part of its probing attack.

It's also important to note that the Battle of Villers-Bocage was nowhere near as one-sided as German propaganda makes out. After Wittman's Tiger was disabled, the surviving elements of 4th CLY were reinforced by infantry elements of 1/7 Queens Batallion. There, their fireflies knocked out several other Tigers from 101st SS Heavy Batallion. To the west, 5th Royal Tank Regiment repulsed attacks near Tracy-Bocage and Le Mesril. Rather than rout, the 7th Armoured withdrew to a fortified position at Amaye-sur-Suelles about 2 miles to the West of Villers-Bocage so they could concentrate their firepower and avoid being cut off from Allied lines. The following day, the German attack on this position by 2nd Panzer Division and Panzergruppe Lehr was roundly defeated with heavy German armour losses.

There was recrimination following the battle, largely levelled at the commander of 4th CLY (who had been captured), for 'appalling march discipline' and allowing a forward position to be caught on the hop. On a wider level, the professional armoured regiments repeated earlier complaints about cavalry and especially territorial units being used as armoured units when it was argued that they didn't have the proper professionalism and training when compared to elements of the RTC. Despite the losses sustained however, there wasn't significant outrage in the British army at the time, largely because battle of the following day had inflicted equivalent if not far heavier casualties on the German forces and despite the fallback from Villers Bocage itself, the division had actually advanced about 6 miles. The view of Villers Bocage as a colossal defeat for the British army came about largely as a result of German propagandists and post-war revisionism. German photographers were able to briefly enter the village after 4th CLY withdrew to regroup, and photographed the wrecked British vehicles, but of course didn't include their own substantial losses in the photographs. The German propaganda also tended to count British light vehicles like the Universal and Lloyd carriers - which were technically armoured but extremely lightly so - and which had been largely abandoned by their infantry crews as 'armoured vehicle' destroyed and equivalent to Cromwell or Sherman tanks.

S: Urban (2013), The Tank War.