With the central box destroyed the German supply route was secure but the real significance was that the Axis armies held a firm bridgehead out of which they could advance. Rommel now directed his attention away from the dying battle and decided to clear the southern wing before reverting to his original plan of striking northwards. Thus, for 2 June, he ordered that 90th Light Division together with Trieste Division were to capture the Bir Hachim box under cover of a mock attack launched by the remainder of Africa Corps.
During the days from 2 to 10 June a battle of attrition was fought in the Knightsbridge and Bir Hachim areas. The 21st Panzer Division was at first ordered northwards while 15th Panzer was held to await developments in the southern sector. This order to split the armoured force was queried by the staff officers at army headquarters for the secret of the great success won by Africa Corps was that it had always struck as a single, invincible block. The officers realised that to follow the commander's order would spread the power of the Corps thinly across an area from Bir Hachim to the Via Balbia and this against a British Army which still retained freedom of manoeuvre together with a great number of tanks which it could commit to battle. As if to confirm the fears of the army staff, 8th Army launched a series of attacks under cover of the khamsin. The first drove in against 15th Panzer, then against Ariete, and finally against 21st Panzer. Rommel cancelled the original order and led 90th Light and Trieste Divisions southwards intending to capture the box at Bir Hachim.
There was little alteration in the battle scene on 3 June for both sides were regrouping, rearming, and preparing for the next round. Ritchie, 8th Army commander, was determined to gain the initiative and wireless intercepts were able to supply the intelligence to Panzer Army headquarters that 2nd and 4th Armoured Brigades, a total of about 400 tanks, were forming south of Bir Harmat Other British armoured and infantry forces had formed along the southern front of Ariete Division. Rommel ordered that Bir Hachim was to be taken, that the two Axis mobile Corps were to remain on the defensive, and the Crüwell Group was to continue its attacks on the northern and western flank. The 15th Panzer was instructed to drive by night, together with 114th Rifle Regiment, along the Trigh el Abd north of Sidi Belafarid and then in a general south-easterly direction to pass through the mine-field, to gain and to enlarge a bridgehead from which an encircling attack would be made at some later date.
During the early morning of 5 June British artillery opened a barrage upon the forward elements of Ariete Division and forced that division to give ground. The barrage then switched to 21st Panzer's sector and behind the shells came the armour striking towards the gaps in the mine-fields. The 8th Army was making a pincer movement to destroy the German bridgehead-Aware that, if the British controlled the exits to the mine-field gaps, the Panzer Army would again face supply difficulties the German counter-attacks were frequent and furious. Within the small desert area between the Trigh Bir Hachim, Capuzzo, and El Abd there was then fought the hard and bitter tank battles which have passed into British military history as the Battles of the Cauldron.
The assaults by Indian infantry and by the 22nd Armoured Brigade struck Ariete Division and forced its troops back past Bir el Aslagh and to Bir el Tamar but then 8th Panzer Regiment swept forward and the 22nd Armoured Brigade, already halted and baffled by the German gun line, was flung back by 8th Panzer Regiment with considerable loss. The 15th Panzer Division, too, had had successes and claimed no less than 50 'kills'. In the afternoon of 5 June, the tanks of 15th Panzer were moved from the bridgehead position to Bir el Harmat but 21st Panzer, which should have collaborated in the counter-attack, had been held by the British tank force which realised that is was now fighting for its life. With the tanks in front of 15th Panzer driver, back in confusion the British and Imperial infantry bore the full brunt of the German counter-attack and were overrun.
Late in the morning the assaults of the British had been driven back on both the northern and the southern sectors and the pincers of the panzer divisions storming forward in pursuit of the withdrawing armour had met and thus had cast a ring around 8th Army's tank force. During the various thrusts and advances not only had the Bir el Harmat box been overrun but the headquarters of both 5th Indian and 7th Armoured Divisions had been dispersed while among the British units in the Trigh Bir Hachim and in the Knightsbridge area havoc had been created. Only at Bir Hachim itself was there still the iron resolve to hold out, and to reduce this troublesome box Rommel ordered that an especially strong battle group be formed and that the French were to be destroyed.
During the night of 5/6 June the British and Indian forces on the Aslagh ridge had been destroyed and the losses reported to 8th Army headquarters included not only two brigades of infantry but four regiments of artillery and more than a hundred tanks. Losses on this scale could not be accepted and it was clear that the initiative was once more in German hands. This was demonstrated by the move which 15th Panzer Division made during the afternoon of 7 June when it captured the high ground north of Knightsbridge against the determined, but uncoordinated, attacks by 22nd and by 4th Armoured Brigades. The fierce fighting of the past days had consumed a higher than normal amount of tank and artillery ammunition and the supply columns were victims of the aggressive British armoured car patrols. To combat these patrols and to ensure the safe arrival of the supply columns, Rommel detatched some of his panzer force as escort, a move which he could afford for now it was clear that the British effort was weakening. The 8th Army's attacks were becoming less strong in intensity, less frequent, and of shorter duration and among the Panzer Army staff there grew the impression that it was the British intention to draw back upon Tobruk and to commit its armour west of that town.
Upon the defenders of Bir Hachim the full force of the German attack was now concentrated. Stuka bombers attacked with monotonous regularity and the French, who had been fighting since the offensive opened, faced with bombardment from the air and from the ground, attacked by tank and infantry without cessation, had been compressed into a small perimeter. When armoured infantry from 15th Panzer Division captured a dominant feature the defence became impossible to maintain and during the night of 10/11 June the French withdrew. The evacuation of the Bir Hachim box opened the final chapter of the defeat for with its fall collapsed the British defence system. The central and southern sectors had been cleared of the British forces; only those in the Gazala sector needed to be attacked and Rommel's plan would have succeeded although its execution had not followed his time-table or sequence.
The 8th Army then pivoted back on the untouched boxes of 1st South African Division and 50th Division and formed a new line from Gazala to Knightsbridge. Once again these newly organised positions were garrisoned by infantry.