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WWII On This Day: July 13

What happened on July 13 during World War II? This date brings together 3 events from 1942, 1943 and 1944, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.

1942
A German tank commander in southern Soviet territory in June 1942, shortly before the opening of Case Blue.
Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-218-0528-30 · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE · Source
Case Blue and the Drive to the Caucasus

Bock relinquishes command

On 13 July Hitler ordered Fedor von Bock to turn Army Group B over to Maximilian von Weichs. The immediate dispute concerned the movement of Fourth Panzer Army away from Voronezh and Hitler's anger over delays and fuel. Bock had argued that the Soviet retreat made the current encirclement scheme obsolete and that armour should be redirected toward the routes the enemy was actually using. His judgment did not make him a retrospective prophet of the whole campaign; he too had begun Case Blue expecting major Soviet forces to be…

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1943
A Tiger tank of the SS panzer corps during the battle of Kursk, July 1943.
Bundesarchiv Bild 101III-Zschaeckel-206-35 · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE · Source
Battle of Kursk 1943

Hitler terminates Operation Citadel

Hitler met Kluge and Manstein on 13 July as Operation Kutuzov expanded against the Orel salient and the Allied landing in Sicily created additional demands on German reserves. The original Citadel concept of converging northern and southern pincers was ended. Manstein received permission to continue limited operations in the south, where he still hoped to improve the tactical situation and inflict further losses on Soviet mobile formations. The decision therefore ended the strategic design while local fighting continued for several days.

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1944
Soviet and Polish Armia Krajowa soldiers patrol Vilnius; the Commons record dates the photograph to 13 July 1944.
Soviet and Polish Armia Krajowa soldiers patrol Vilnius; the Commons record dates the photograph to 13 July 1944. Unknown photographer / Polish National Archives, signature 37-1385 · Public domain Source
Operation Bagration

Vilnius falls and the pursuit enters Lithuania

After several days of fighting, Soviet forces eliminated the German garrison in Vilnius and opened the route toward Kaunas and the East Prussian frontier. The Minsk encirclement had also been largely cleared by this stage, freeing additional Soviet formations while tens of thousands of German prisoners moved to the rear. The capture of Vilnius showed that the offensive could still generate local encirclements after Minsk, but the strategic situation was changing. German reinforcements were arriving from other army groups and from Germany itself, while Soviet supply lines were lengthening across…

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