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WWII On This Day: June 13

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

1942
British and Commonwealth prisoners gathered near Tobruk following its surrender, June 1942.
Koch / Bundesarchiv Bild 183-B21459 · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE
Gazala and the Fall of Tobruk

Black Saturday: British armour is driven back at Knightsbridge

The main Axis armoured divisions pressed the British brigades around Knightsbridge on 13 June. Tanks and anti-tank guns concentrated against British formations that were increasingly dispersed, short of serviceable vehicles and unable to carry out a single decisive counterstroke. The position was abandoned after heavy fighting. British returns record a drastic decline in operational tank strength, although different returns include different units and repairable vehicles. XIII Corps infantry boxes could no longer rely on mobile armour to protect their withdrawal routes.

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Battery 30, known to the Germans as Maxim Gorky I, photographed after its capture in June 1942. The image records the destroyed twin 305 mm turret.
Battery 30, known to the Germans as Maxim Gorky I, photographed after its capture in June 1942. The image records the destroyed twin 305 mm turret. Horst Grund / Bundesarchiv, N 1603 Bild-117 · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE Source
Sevastopol and the Crimea

Battery 30 falls on the northern front

Heavy German fire had damaged the Battery 30 position and disabled one of its armored turrets during the fighting. German infantry and engineers then reached the fort and completed its capture on 13 June. The battery's fall removed a major strongpoint from the northern defensive system and opened the struggle for the high ground above Severnaya Bay.

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1944
A damaged M4 Sherman in Normandy, 9 June 1944.
A damaged M4 Sherman in Normandy, 9 June 1944. US Army Signal Corps · NARA · Public domain Source
Operation Overlord

Villers-Bocage

The 7th Armoured Division, sent round the western flank of Panzer Lehr to unhinge Caen, was halted in the streets of Villers-Bocage. A small number of Tigers of 101st SS Heavy Panzer Battalion, led by Michael Wittmann, destroyed a large part of a column of 22nd Armoured Brigade in a short and one-sided action. The division withdrew and the western route round Caen closed for six weeks. At Carentan the same day, 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division came close to retaking the town before armour of 2nd Armored Division arrived. In…

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