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WWII On This Day: June 14

What happened on June 14 during World War II? This date brings together 3 events from 1940, 1942 and 1944, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.

1940
German troops in northern France during the campaign of 1940.
Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-299-1808-10A · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE · Source
Battle of France 1940

German troops enter Paris

German troops entered Paris on 14 June after the French government had declared the capital an open city and moved south. A large share of the civilian population had already joined the exodus, while ministries and military headquarters shifted toward Tours and Bordeaux. German formations occupied bridges, public buildings and symbolic sites across the city. The fall of Paris carried immense political weight even as the field armies continued fighting elsewhere. The government now debated the terms on which military resistance, evacuation to North Africa and an armistice could be…

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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

Ritchie orders the Gazala position evacuated

The danger that Axis armour would cut the line behind the infantry boxes made the Gazala position untenable. Eighth Army ordered the withdrawal of South African, British and other Commonwealth units, with rearguards covering movements across routes increasingly threatened by Rommel's columns. The withdrawal was not one orderly movement. Some formations escaped with transport, while others abandoned equipment, broke into separated groups or fought to reach Tobruk and Egypt. The decision preserved important elements of the army but conceded its fortified line.

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1944
Operation Overlord, June 1944.
Operation Overlord, June 1944. IWM A 24010 · IWM Non-Commercial Licence Source
Operation Overlord

De Gaulle returns to France

General de Gaulle landed at Courseulles and went on to Bayeux, where he spoke in the square and appointed a commissioner of the Republic, presenting the Free French provisional government as the lawful authority in liberated France before the Allies had formally recognised it. It was a political act carried out on ground held by other people's armies, and it worked. Allied Military Government for Occupied Territories was never imposed on France.

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