Battle of Tobruk
The Battle of Tobruk was a significant military engagement during World War II, primarily occurring in 1941 and 1942. The port city of Tobruk, located in Libya, was a crucial strategic point for both Axis and Allied forces, as it served as the only large harbor between Benghazi and Alexandria. Following a series of early German victories in North Africa led by General Erwin Rommel, Tobruk remained one of the last strongholds for the Allies. The initial attempts by Rommel to capture the city in April and May 1941 were thwarted by Australian troops.
In response to the siege, the Allies organized the Eighth Army, which launched Operation Crusader in November 1941. This operation aimed to relieve Tobruk, and after intense fighting, the siege was successfully lifted in December. However, the situation shifted again in mid-1942, as resources were diverted to other fronts, allowing Rommel to mount a powerful counteroffensive. Tobruk ultimately fell on June 21, 1942, leading to the capture of around 35,000 Allied troops. Despite this loss, the defense of Tobruk became a symbol of resilience and determination, allowing the Allies time to regroup and ultimately leading to a decisive victory at El Alamein later that year.
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Battle of Tobruk
Type of action: Ground battles in World War II
Date: November 18, 1941-June 21, 1942
Location: Northeastern Libya
Combatants: 118,000 British, Australians, and South Africans vs.119,000 Germans and Italians
Principal commanders:British, General Sir Claude Auchinleck (1884–1981); German, Colonel General Erwin Rommel (1891–1944)
Result: British liberation and German recapture of the Allied fortress at Tobruk
After the brilliant victories of General Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Corps in the western desert campaigns in the spring of 1941, the Germans controlled all of North Africa except the strategic Libyan port of Tobruk in the province of Cyrenaica west of the Egyptian frontier. Tobruk was the only large harbor along the Libyan coastline between Benghazi and Alexandria. Both sides understood that Tobruk must fall in order for the Axis forces to maintain supply lines long enough to invade Egypt, which protected the approaches to the petroleum resources of the Persian Gulf. Rommel had first tried to take Tobruk on April 12 but was repulsed by battle-tested Australian troops. On May 1, a second coordinated assault was also beaten back, and the German high command decided to lay siege to the garrison’s seventeen-mile perimeter. Both sides suffered under the harsh desert conditions, fighting maddening swarms of sand fleas and sandstorms that covered everything with thick yellow dust.
Backed by Winston Churchill, British general Archibald Wavell planned Operation Battleaxe in mid-May to break through to Tobruk. The offensive was premature. Rommel easily repulsed Wavell and destroyed more than half the British armor. During the summer, British forces were reorganized into the Eighth Army, and Wavell was replaced by British general Claude Auchinleck, who ordered General Alan Cunningham to plan Operation Crusader to occupy Cyrenaica and relieve Tobruk. In the fall, the Allies sent 12,000 fresh troops and thousands of tons of supplies to Tobruk by sea. Auchinleck had 600 tanks to Rommel’s 400, but only 72 antitank guns compared with 192 for the Germans.
On the night of November 18, 1941, the British Eighth Army attacked with its full force of tanks and air superiority. The surprise assault rocked Rommel, and an erratic war of attrition developed around Sidi Rezegh, twenty miles southeast of Tobruk. This phase of Operation Crusader was especially confusing because of unrecognizable landmarks in the trackless desert hazes and the inexperience of the Allies in desert warfare. Cunningham had all but lost the battle when Auchinleck took personal command of the reeling Allied troops. The plans for Operation Crusader included a breakout from the fortress to threaten Rommel’s rear. Led by Australian General Leslie Morshead, the breakout succeeded on November 26, and the siege was lifted on December 9. The Eighth Army was able to link up with the Second New Zealand Division and fought its way along the coast, triumphantly entering El Agheila four hundred miles west of Tobruk. The poorly supplied Axis forces lost hundreds of tanks and suffered 29,000 casualties. Operation Crusader became the first major British victory over a German-commanded force in World War II.
The Allied victory was short-lived, however. When Japan opened the Asian front, the Allies were forced to divert resources from North Africa. Rommel counterattacked fiercely in the spring and drove the Allies east, back to Bir Hacheim-Gazala (May 26, 1942). With British armor reduced to 70 tanks, the Germans assaulted Tobruk for the third time. By June 18, the garrison was again besieged and desperate. After devastating barrages and Stuka air strikes, Tobruk fell on June 21 and nearly all its 35,000 defenders became prisoners of war. Rommel was promoted to field marshal and, two days later, using the matériel captured at Tobruk, the Germans invaded Egypt.
Significance
The defense of Tobruk is an epic in British military annals. The siege of “the desert rats” in the fortress became a cause célèbre for the beleaguered Allies. Although Tobruk finally fell, its gallant fourteen-month defense blocked the Germans’ advance into Egypt, buying time for the Allies to reinforce Greece and Malta. The final reversal came when Rommel was defeated by the British at El Alamein (October 23-November 4, 1942), and the Allies recaptured Tobruk on November 13, 1942.
Bibliography
Cull, Brian. Hurricanes over Tobruk. London: Grub Street, 1999.
Cumpston, John. The Rats Remain: Tobruk Siege, 1941. Melbourne: Gray, 1966.
Desert Victory. Documentary. Army Film Unit, 1943.
Forty, George. Afrikakorps at War. New York: Scribners, 1978.
Hall, Timothy. Tobruk 1941: The Desert Siege. North Ryde: Methuen, 1984.
Harrison, Frank. Tobruk: The Great Siege Reassessed. London: Arms & Armour Press, 1997.
Mitcham, Samuel W. Rommel’s Greatest Victory. The Desert Fox and the Fall of Tobruk, Spring, 1942. Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1998.
Tobruk. Documentary. Army Film Unit, 1942.
Tobruk. Fiction feature. Universal, 1966.