Initially garrisoned by the Australian 9th Division, Tobruk repulsed several Axis attacks during mid-April. Throughout the following siege, Allied naval units and aircraft provided critical supplies and reinforcements to the garrison. During the summer and fall, Germany sent in the non-motorized Afrika Infantry Division, the remainder of the 15th Panzer Division, and some miscellaneous German units. Italy supplied both regular infantry and Bersaglieri, artillery, and better armor elements, upgrading its previously poor-performing units. All this was in preparation for an Axis seizure of Tobruk, followed by an advance on Egypt.
Axis forces also established a line of interlocking fortified posts at Bardia and along the Egyptian border, built around the Savona Division. Between Tobruk and the border, Rommel, nominally under the command of the Italian governor of Libya, General Ettore Bastico, established armor units centered on the Afrika Korps. The Italian Maneuver Corps was in support; it consisted of the Ariete Armored Division and elements of the Trieste Motorized Division.
In May and June, General Wavell conducted Operations BREVITY and BATTLEAXE, respectively, in an attempt to break through the frontier line and to relieve Tobruk. Both failed, and Wavell was relieved and replaced by Lieutenant General Claude Auchinleck. Under him, Lieutenant General Alan Cunningham commanded Eighth Army. Auchinleck began gathering his growing strength for Operation CRUSADER, scheduled for November, while Rommel brought in siege artillery for a final assault of the now largely British-garrisoned Tobruk.
The Allies struck the first blow, their well-camouflaged preparations being complete by 17 November. The two-pronged Allied operation consisted of a slow but steady advance along the coast road by infantry and heavy tanks, while inland, Cunningham moved with his armor units. A portion of the Ariete Division repulsed the British 22nd Armour Brigade at Bir el Gobi on 18 November, but it was not until two days later that Rommel began to react to the Allied attack.
As Rommel shifted armored forces to attack and hammer some of the Allied mobile units, the British 70th Division in Tobruk assaulted the largely Italian infantry units holding the siege lines. Rommel wanted to force the Allies back so he might make his “dash to the wire” (the barbed wire along the Egyptian border erected by the Italians in the 1930s), but his advance failed to disrupt the Allies or to capture Allied supply dumps. Believing Cunningham was moving too slowly, Auchinleck replaced him with Lieutenant General Neil Ritchie. Meanwhile, the elite 2nd New Zealand Division continued its advance to link up with the 70th Division at Tobruk.
Throughout this period, the Allied naval stranglehold in the Mediterranean kept supplies from arriving in North Africa. The dramatic destruction of the Duisburg convoy on the night of 8–9 November resulted in the temporary halt of all Axis convoys to Libya at the same time that Rommel’s battles exhausted his ammunition and tanks. He had no choice but to retreat.
As Axis forces began to pull back near Gazala, just west of Tobruk, and the Allies linked up with Tobruk, the Second Battle of Bir el Gobi occurred on 4 December. The Giovani Fascisti (Young Fascists), a two-battalion volunteer unit, held off the advance of a brigade of the 4th Indian Division. However, with this battle and one other small action, Bastico and Rommel were in agreement by the middle of the month that Axis forces had to fall back through Cyrenaica in mid-December. The retreat went well, although all of Cyrenaica was lost. Isolated Axis units along the border were forced to surrender. The first German general of the war to be captured, Major General Arthur Schmitt, and 13,800 men marched off to prisoner-of-war camps.
This action was the first major victory by the British against an army with a substantial German element. Axis forces had sustained 38,300 casualties, with almost 30,000 of them prisoners. Allied losses were only 17,700 (7,500 prisoners).
The Axis supply situation from Italy soon improved, enabling the shipment of important reinforcements to North Africa. In January 1942, an Axis counterattack went as far as Gazala, where both armies would face each other over the next several months.
References Carver, Michael. Tobruk. London: B. T. Batesford, 1964. Greene, Jack, and Alessandro Massignani. Rommel’s North Africa Campaign. Conshohocken, PA: Combined Publishing, 1994. Harrison, Frank. Tobruk: The Great Siege Reassessed. London: Arms and Armour Press, 1996. Montanari, Mario. Le operazioni in Africa Settentrionale. Vol. 2, Tobruk. Rome: Ufficio Storico, 1985.
0 comments:
Post a Comment