Battle of Villers-Bocage 1944
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 13 June 1944 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1944 | Wikidata P585 (point in time) |
| Era | World War II era (1939–1945) | derived from year |
| Location | France | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Europe | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | World War II | Wikidata P361 |
| Participants | United Kingdom | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 49.0806, -0.6561 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Battle of Villers-Bocage took place during the Second World War on 13 June 1944, one week after the Normandy landings, which had begun the Western Allies' conquest of German-occupied France. The battle was the result of a British attempt to exploit a gap in the German defences west of the city of Caen. After one day of fighting in and around the small town of Villers-Bocage and a second day defending a position outside the town, the British force retreated.
The Allies and the Germans regarded control of Caen as vital to the Normandy campaign. In the days following the D-Day landings on 6 June, the Germans rapidly dug in north of the city. On 9 June, a two-pronged British attempt to surround and capture Caen was defeated. On the right flank of the British Second Army, the 1st US Infantry Division had forced back the German 352nd Infantry Division and opened a gap in the German front. To bypass the German Panzer-Lehr Division blocking the direct route south in the area of Tilly-sur-Seulles, a mixed force of tanks, infantry and artillery, based on the 22nd Armoured Brigade (Brigadier William "Loony" Hinde) of the 7th Armoured Division, advanced through the gap in a flanking manoeuvre towards Villers-Bocage.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of Villers-Bocage (revision 1371672923), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
Nearby battles
- Second Battle of the Odon 1944 · 13 km
- Battle of Le Mesnil-Patry 1944 · 15 km
- Siege of Caen (1417) 1417 · 24 km
- Battle of Caen (1346) 1346 · 24 km
- Siege of Caen (1450) 1450 · 24 km
- Battle of Verrières Ridge 1944 · 24 km
Other battles of the World War II
- New Georgia campaign 1943
- Operation Garlic 1943
- Siege of Turjak 1943
- Smolensk operation 1943
- Third Battle of Kharkov 1943
- Action of 14 February 1944 1944
- Action of 17 July 1944 1944
- Air battle over the Ore Mountains 1944
- Allied siege of La Rochelle 1944
- Battle for Hill 140 1944
All 178 battles of the World War II →
Browse more: battles in France · Europe · World War II era battles