Siege of Tobruk
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| Siege of Tobruk | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of World War II, North African Campaign | |||||||
 Polish Independent Carpathian Brigade's offensive on Derna, November 12, 1941 |
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| Combatants | |||||||
 Australia United Kingdom South Africa Poland Czechoslovakia |
 Germany Kingdom of Italy |
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| Commanders | |||||||
| Leslie Morshead | Erwin Rommel | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 14,000 | 35,000? | ||||||
| Casualties | |||||||
| Allies: 9,009 killed 941 captured estimated 12,000 total |
8,000 | ||||||
| Western Desert Campaign |
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| Compass – Sonnenblume – Tobruk – Brevity – Battleaxe – Crusader – Gazala – Bir Hakeim – 1st Alamein – Alam Halfa – Agreement – 2nd Alamein |
The Siege of Tobruk was a lengthy confrontation between Axis and Allied forces, mostly from the Australian 9th Division, in the North African Campaign of World War II. It started on 10 April 1941, when Lieutenant General Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps attacked the fort, besieging it for 240 days.
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[edit] Background
On January 21, 1941, the Australian 9th Division made an assault to capture Tobruk from the Italian garrison, during the Allied Operation Compass, aimed at driving the Italians from Libya and Tunisia. It took 12 hours before the Italian commander, General Petassi Manella surrendered himself, but he refused to order the surrender of the town, which meant resistance lasted for a few more hours before the garrison was defeated. Australian casualties were 49 dead and 306 wounded, while the Italian defenders suffered 27,000 POWs.
On 24 March Rommel launched his first offensive with the newly arrived Afrika Korps, and by 10 April reconnaissance elements of the force reached Tobruk, and the roles were reversed, with the Australians being the beleaguered forces.
The Australian commander, Lieutenant General Leslie Morshead divided the 50 kilometre (30 mile) perimeter into three rough sectors. It would be the job of the three Australian brigades to ensure these were not breached. The 26th would hold the western sector, the 20th would hold the south and the 24th would hold the east. The 9th Division was reinforced by the Australian 18th Brigade (detached from the 7th Division) and British artillery units. Morshead also ordered all Italian signal cables to be re-laid. He wanted to know what was happening, and where, so he could adjust his forces accordingly. He also kept a reserve of runners in case the telephone lines were disrupted by the German attack.
[edit] The attacks begins
At 4:00 AM on April 10, 1941, during one of the most fierce khamsin (sandstorm) in a generation, a patrol from the Australian 2/48th Battalion (9th Division) discovered that they were being trailed by a German panzer. They succeeded in losing the tank before they got back to Tobruk. This alerted the Australian forces to the threat of the coming assault.
The first shots in the defence of Tobruk were fired using captured Italian field guns, by members of the 2/28th Infantry Battalion, who had been given one week's training in the use of artillery. They observed three German armoured cars closing in on their position.
General Heinrich von Prittwitz und Gaffron was near the front line, supervising troops of the German 8th Machine Gun Battalion attacking a slope that led to a destroyed bridge. He made a good target for Australian gunners; he and his driver were among the first casualties and both were killed. The skirmish lasted for three hours until the Germans finally fell back. Australian sappers and engineers hastily laid minefields.
Rommel decided to sweep past Tobruk, cutting the main Bardia Road to Cairo and investing the city. However, because of Allied naval superiority, the Allied troops were never short of supplies, and wounded troops could be ferried out of the city. The siege of the city was done with three Italian Infantry Division and the Italian Ariete Armour Division as well as elements from the 5th Light Division , under General Kircheim, the only German division under Rommel's command.
[edit] The Easter Attack
Just after noon on 11 April 1941, the Germans and Italians positioned themselves for a concentrated attack on the city. To exaggerate the size of their force, they were ordered to make more dust than normal. The 5th Panzer Regiment of the 5th Light Division drew fire first to try to assess the defence. Within an hour, five of the German tanks were destroyed and the others pulled back. At 3:00 PM the men of the 2/13th Battalion saw about 400 Axis soldiers approach. The Australians defensive fire forced the Germans to retreat, carrying their dead and wounded with them.
At 4:00 PM, a platoon-sized formation from the 2/17th Battalion saw 700 Axis launching an attack on their position. The Australians were outnumbered and outgunned with only two Bren guns, a few dozen rifles and a couple of Boys anti-tank rifles. The Australian artillery opened fire and inflicted significant casualties, but the Axis infantry kept advancing. Several groups of Panzers and Italian M13s advanced on the Australians. As the Axis armor closed in, four British tanks arrived, firing over the head of the infantry. The Axis tanks could not hurdle the obstacles set for them and they fell back to regroup. This attack yielded only one dead on the Allied side.
In cases where panzers did reach or pass the Australian lines, the infantry — ensconced in well-built strongpoints, including many installed by the original Italian garrison — simply concentrated on the German infantry, knowing that the tanks' guns could not be brought to bear on them and the Germans would face anti-tank guns in the second line of defences. At one point, a combined infantry/armour force attacking, had its armour driven back and the infantry stranded behind Australian lines for quite some time before they could be extracted.
Morshead's defence plan was aggressive. He ordered rigorous patrolling of the anti-tank ditches and more mines laid. The aggressive patrolling appeared to work. The 2/13th Battalion encountered a German raiding party with a large amount of explosives. The party had clearly intended to blow the sides of a anti-tank ditch, allowing easier passage for tanks to cross - but they were forced to retreat.
Rommel were impressed by the conduct of the defenders. The heavy losses incurred by the attackers, led to Rommel holding off further attacks until more preparations could be done. He awaited the arrival of more German forces, as well as conduct more training of his forces in the art of siege warfare. His Italian divisions, having suffered heavy casualties, refused to conduct further attacks on Tobruk. The German 5th Light Division were also hesitant about further attacks. No further major attacks were planned until the end of November 1941.
The Australians had achieved a notable success in holding off the German offensive. One German POW said: "I cannot understand you Australians. In Poland, France, and Belgium, once the tanks got through the soldiers took it for granted that they were beaten. But you are like demons. The tanks break through and your infantry still keep fighting."[1] Rommel wrote of seeing "a batch of some fifty or sixty Australian prisoners ... marched off close behind us—immensely big and powerful men, who without question represented an elite formation of the British Empire, a fact that was also evident in battle."[2]
[edit] The siege
Three attempts were made before the siege was successfully lifted by allied troops:
- Operation Brevity (May 15 - 27, 1941)
- Operation Battleaxe (June 15 - 17, 1941)
- Operation Crusader (November 18 - December 10, 1941)
For most of the siege, Tobruk was defended by the 9th Division under Morshead. General Archibald Wavell instructed Morshead to hold the fortress for eight weeks, but the 9th Division held it for over eight months, before being gradually withdrawn and replaced by the British 70th Infantry Division, the Polish Carpathian Brigade and Czechoslovak 11th Infantry Battalion (East) just prior to the start of Operation Crusader. The Royal Navy also played an important role in Tobruk's defense, providing gunfire support, supplies, fresh troops and ferrying out the wounded.
Tobruk was the longest siege in British Imperial military history, and was the first notable defeat for the Africa Corps. Rommel nonetheless captured Tobruk in a new offensive in 1942 in the Battle of Gazala. Among the prisoners were the main body of the South African 2nd Division.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- The Characteristic of Tobruk defence in 1941
- BBC - WW2 People's War - Siege of Tobruk
- Australian War Memorial - Siege of Tobruk
- Siege of Tobruk
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Col. Ward A. Miller (U.S. Army), 1986, The 9th Australian Division Versus the Africa Corps: An Infantry Division Against Tanks-Tobruk, Libya, 1941. Access date: March 9, 2007.
- ^ Miller, Ibid.
[edit] References
- Peter Fitzsimons, Tobruk, London: Harper Collins, 2006
- Frank Harrison, Tobruk: The Great Siege Reassessed, London: Arms and Armour, 1996
- Jon Latimer, Tobruk 1941: Rommel's Opening Move, Oxford: Osprey, 2001
