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WWII On This Day: April 13

What happened on April 13 during World War II? This date brings together 5 events from 1940, 1941, 1944 and 1945, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.

1940
HMS Warspite in action during the second naval battle of Narvik on 13 April 1940.
HMS Warspite in action during the second naval battle of Narvik on 13 April 1940. Royal Navy official photograph / Imperial War Museums A 38 · public domain Source
Operation Weserübung

Warspite and nine destroyers destroy the Narvik flotilla

HMS Warspite entered Ofotfjord on 13 April with nine destroyers for the second British naval action at Narvik. A Swordfish launched from Warspite located German ships and sank U-64. British gunfire then drove the surviving German destroyers into Rombaksfjord and other confined waters where they were sunk, scuttled or run ashore. All ten destroyers committed to the original German Narvik landing had now been lost. Their surviving crews joined Dietl's mountain troops ashore, adding trained sailors to an isolated ground force whose sea transport had disappeared.

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1941
A German Panzer IV of the 11th Panzer Division advancing into Yugoslavia in April 1941.
Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-770-0280-20 · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE · Source
Invasion of Yugoslavia, April 1941

German armoured formations occupy the capital

By the morning of 13 April, the principal German formations had entered Belgrade. Elements of the 8th Panzer Division arrived during the night, Kleist’s force from the south was rolling into the city by 06:32, and patrols from the north completed the convergence. German commanders had treated Belgrade as the operational meeting point of widely separated thrusts. Its capture confirmed that the principal Yugoslav command centre and the central road-and-rail junction could no longer support a national defence. Mobile formations were immediately redirected toward Bosnia and the remaining Yugoslav headquarters.…

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A reconnaissance detachment of the German 5th Panzer Division entering Athens on 27 April 1941.
Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1979-123-32 · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE · Source
German Invasion of Greece, April 1941

Wilson orders the retreat toward Thermopylae

On 13 April, with the Vevi position broken and German armour driving toward Kozani, Wilson decided to withdraw W Force toward the Thermopylae line. Papagos accepted the need to shorten the front while Greek formations in Albania also began moving back through the Pindus. A direct retreat over hundreds of kilometres would have exposed road columns to pursuit and air attack. The withdrawal therefore depended on successive rearguards at the Aliakmon crossings, Olympus, Platamon and the Pinios Gorge, with demolitions used to slow the German mobile formations. The decision changed…

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1944
Soviet T-34 tanks entering Simferopol during the April 1944 Crimean offensive; Commons dates the photograph to April 1944.
Soviet T-34 tanks entering Simferopol during the April 1944 Crimean offensive; Commons dates the photograph to April 1944. Unknown wartime photographer · public domain Source
Sevastopol and the Crimea

Simferopol falls as the retreat accelerates

Soviet forces entered Simferopol while German and Romanian formations pulled south-west toward Sevastopol. The collapse of intermediate positions made the retreat across central Crimea continuous. Rear guards tried to keep the roads open for combat troops, transport and columns moving toward the fortress. The Soviet advance now reproduced the 1941 movement across Crimea in the opposite direction.

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1945
Men of the 95th Division, US Ninth Army, patrolling Soest after its capture, 7 April 1945.
Men of the 95th Division patrolling Soest, 7 April 1945 · US Army Signal Corps SC 336817 · NARA · Public domain · Source
The Ruhr Pocket

Zangen surrenders

Gustav-Adolf von Zangen had lost effective control of Fifteenth Army. On 13 April he surrendered with his staff to the 7th Armored Division. The surrender removed one of the principal army headquarters inside the pocket while Model still refused a formal capitulation for Army Group B.

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