Operation Crusader
Operation Crusader began on the 18th of November 1941, and its target did not even know it was happening. Generalleutnant Erwin Rommel, commanding the Axis forces in North Africa, was away from the front when the British Eighth Army attacked. A deception plan had persuaded him that the real assault would not come until early December. It also convinced him the blow would land far to the south, sweeping through the desert oasis of Jarabub on the edge of the Great Sand Sea. Rommel refused to believe an attack was close. He was not even in Africa when it began.
The Eighth Army fielded Commonwealth, Indian and other Allied troops against Rommel's German and Italian divisions. It aimed to slip past the fortified Axis line on the Egyptian-Libyan frontier and destroy the Axis armour near Tobruk. The offensive was also meant to break the siege trapping a garrison inside that port and retake the region of Cyrenaica. Surprise and an absent commander should have made the next six weeks straightforward for the British. Instead, tank crews, code breakers, supply officers and generals on both sides would each shape how the campaign in the desert actually turned out.
A German unit called FAK 621, short for Nachrichten Fernaufklärungs Kompanie, supplied Rommel with high-quality tactical intelligence from August 1941 to January 1942. The unit exploited British carelessness across the front, including sloppy handling of tactical codes and radio operators who spoke plainly over the air. Call signs meant to disguise which unit was signalling, from brigade level down to battalion, proved ineffective at the front. FAK 621 also read much of the War Office's high-grade hand cypher. Wireless traffic carrying that cypher ran from Eighth Army headquarters down to divisional headquarters.
Until the British improved their recyphering in January, the two sides' code-breaking stood roughly level. The Germans learned as much about British formations from FAK 621 as Ultra revealed about the Axis order of battle. Ultra was the code name for decrypts produced by the Government Code and Cypher School. In October 1941, decrypts of the British Army's own Enigma traffic had shown that the Germans possessed accurate data about increased British tank strengths. The scale of the leak alarmed the War Office.
Only in July 1942, after the British captured FAK 621 itself, did the War Office learn how far German eavesdropping had reached.
A single German motorised division burned through 350 long tons of supplies every day. Moving that tonnage roughly 300 miles to the front required as many as 1,170 lorries, each hauling about two long tons. Across seven Axis divisions, plus air and naval units, the total requirement reached 70,000 long tons a month. The Vichy French agreed to let German shipping use the port of Bizerta, but no supplies actually reached that port until late 1942.
Between February and May 1941, the Axis had actually managed a surplus of 45,000 long tons delivered. British attacks from Malta had some effect on shipping, and May turned out to be the worst month for ship losses. Even so, 91 per cent of supplies still arrived that month. The bigger problem was transport once cargo reached Libya. The Italians had only 7,000 lorries to supply 225,000 men, so German stockpiles sat unused in Tripoli.
June brought a record delivery of supplies, yet shortages at the front actually worsened. Axis attacks on Malta eased from June onward. The British then sank a rising share of Axis shipping, up from 19 per cent in July to 25 per cent in September. That September, Benghazi was bombed and ships were diverted to Tripoli instead, and extra air supply flights in October made little difference. From July to October, deliveries averaged 72,000 long tons a month. Road transport alone consumed 30 to 50 per cent of that fuel, and 35 per cent of supply lorries were unserviceable.
By November, during the fighting of Operation Crusader itself, a five-ship convoy was sunk, and air attacks on road convoys blocked daylight movement altogether. Shortages, combined with the Eighth Army's advance, forced an Axis retreat toward El Agheila starting on the 4th of December. Retreating vehicles crowded the coastal Via Balbia road, where British ambushes destroyed roughly half of the remaining Axis transport. Convoys to Tripoli resumed, and ship losses rose, yet by the 16th of December the supply picture had eased except for the fuel shortage.
In December, the Luftwaffe was restricted to just one supply sortie a day. The Vichy French sold the Axis 3,600 long tons of fuel. U-boats were ordered into the Mediterranean, and the Soviet front released aircraft to reinforce Africa. Between the 16th and the 17th of December, the Regia Marina made its maximum effort of the campaign. Four battleships, three light cruisers and 20 destroyers escorted four cargo ships carrying fuel to Derna and Benghazi. That single armada protected just 20,000 long tons of cargo. It used so much of the navy's own fuel reserve that only one further battleship convoy proved possible. Bizerta was considered as a substitute port, but it sat within range of RAF aircraft flying from Malta. It also lay another 500 miles further west than Tripoli.
Winston Churchill and the British War Cabinet had personally pressed General Archibald Wavell to prevent Tobruk's loss. The port mattered to both sides as a supply entrepot, and Berlin's OKW and Rome's Comando Supremo repeatedly demanded its capture. The garrison, mostly the 9th Australian Division, had already beaten back an Axis attack in May 1941. After that, the siege settled into a routine of active defence. Australian patrols went out most nights to reconnoitre, raid and ambush, gaining the upper hand in no man's land.
The 20th Australian Infantry Brigade improved the Australian position at the Ras el Medauar salient, since reinforcements from Egypt for any larger sortie were not available. The 24th Australian Infantry Brigade also attempted an attack on the salient's shoulders, but it failed, and the garrison went back to active defence.
On the night of the 20th of November 1941, the Tobruk garrison prepared its breakout. Sappers gapped the wire, laid marked minefields and threw four bridges over the anti-tank ditch. The assault force included the 14th and 16th Infantry Brigades and the 32nd Army Tank Brigade. It was backed by more than a hundred guns firing 40,000 rounds at the Italian Bologna, Brescia and Pavia divisions. The Polish Carpathian Brigade staged a diversion just before dawn.
The attacking force struck with the 2nd King's Own on the right, the 2nd Black Watch in the centre, and another battalion on the left. A charge under heavy machine-gun fire carried the Black Watch to a position called strongpoint Tiger, but cost the battalion about 200 men and its commanding officer. By mid-afternoon the force had pushed some 3.5 miles toward Ed Duda before pausing, once it was clear the 7th Armoured Division would not link up as planned.
On the 26th of November, the 6th New Zealand Infantry Brigade attacked a battalion of the 9th Bersaglieri Regiment dug in around the Prophet's Tomb. Early on the 27th of November, that brigade linked up with the Tobruk garrison at Ed Duda, forming a small bridgehead and ending the siege. The strongpoint called Tugun had already surrendered on the evening of the 25th of November, its garrison down to half strength and out of food, water and ammunition.
Before dawn on the 18th of November 1941, storms grounded aircraft on both sides as the Eighth Army crossed the Libyan border near Fort Maddalena and turned north-west. The 7th Armoured Brigade pushed toward Tobruk, the 22nd Armoured Brigade advanced to its west, and the 4th Armoured Brigade covered the left flank of XIII Corps near Sidi Omar. Splitting the armour this way let the British tanks meet the main Axis force piecemeal rather than together.
At Bir el Gubi on the 19th of November, the 22nd Armoured Brigade clashed with the Italian Ariete Division and lost 25 of its new Crusader tanks, against an Italian loss of 34. Further east that day, a battlegroup of the 21st Panzer Division knocked out 23 Stuart tanks of the 4th Armoured Brigade at Gabr Saleh for the loss of just three. In the centre, the 7th Armoured Brigade reached Sidi Rezegh airfield and captured 19 aircraft there.
In four days of fighting, from the 18th to the 22nd of November, the Eighth Army lost 530 tanks against roughly 100 Axis losses. On the 23rd of November, a day the Germans called Totensonntag, the 5th South African Brigade was overrun and destroyed near Sidi Rezegh. It had inflicted heavy German tank losses in the process. The Afrika Korps lost 72 of its 162 tanks that day, casualties its commanders considered irreplaceable. On the 24th of November, Rommel ordered what became known as the dash to the wire, sending his remaining tanks racing for the Egyptian frontier.
The German push scattered rear-echelon units, split XXX Corps and nearly cut off XIII Corps. Yet the dash also gave the scattered British armoured brigades time to reorganise. Lieutenant-Colonel Howard Kippenberger watched the action at Point 175. He wrote that Ariete's tanks and transport had 'rolled straight over our infantry on Pt. 175.' At Sidi Azeiz on the 27th of November, a small New Zealand garrison was overrun and 700 prisoners were taken. Rommel himself congratulated Brigadier James Hargest for the stubborn New Zealand defence there.
By the 23rd of November, XXX Corps reported just 44 serviceable tanks against 120 Axis tanks still running. That imbalance was about to reach the desk of the Eighth Army's own commander.
On the morning of the 23rd of November 1941, before news arrived that the 5th South African Brigade had been destroyed, Lieutenant-General Alan Cunningham asked Auchinleck to meet him at Eighth Army headquarters. Cunningham wanted to decide whether Crusader should continue at all. Auchinleck arrived that evening and bluntly insisted the operation continue regardless of losses.
Two days later, on the 25th of November, Auchinleck handed Cunningham a written directive before returning to Cairo. It read: 'You will therefore continue to attack the enemy relentlessly using all your resources, even to the last tank. Your ultimate object remains the conquest of Cyrenaica and then to advance on Tripoli.' Cunningham immediately issued orders to keep XIII Corps advancing. Auchinleck later wrote to him that 'You loyally accepted this decision, and at once gave orders to give effect to it.'
Once back in Cairo, Auchinleck was persuaded by Air Marshal Tedder to relieve Cunningham of command. His replacement was Major-General Neil Ritchie, Auchinleck's own Deputy Chief of the General Staff, promoted to acting lieutenant-general for the job.
Under Ritchie, the Eighth Army would soon reorganise its forces yet again, sending the 4th Indian Infantry Division and the 5th New Zealand Infantry Brigade forward to XIII Corps for the next stage of the campaign.
By early December 1941, Rommel's shrinking fuel reserves left him little choice. On the 7th of December, Axis forces withdrew to the Gazala position, and on the 15th of December they began a further withdrawal to El Agheila. Comando Supremo had told Rommel on the 5th of December that supply would not improve until airborne deliveries from Sicily began at month's end.
The Eighth Army opened its own attack on the Gazala line on the 13th of December, striking along an eight-mile front from the coast. Fighting there cost both sides heavily. The British Buffs battalion at Point 204 lost more than 1,000 men killed or captured, with only 71 men escaping. By the 15th of December, the Afrika Korps was down to eight operational tanks. Despite objections from his Italian generals, Rommel ordered an evacuation of the Gazala line on the night of the 15th to the 16th of December.
The Axis strongholds on the Libya-Egypt border still stood even after Gazala fell. On the 16th of December, the 2nd South African Division attacked Bardia, held by 2,200 German and 6,600 Italian troops, and took the port on the 2nd of January 1942. Sollum fell on the 12th of January. The Halfaya Pass garrison, made up of 4,200 Italians of the 55th Infantry Division Savona and 2,100 Germans, was already desperately short of food and water. General Fedele De Giorgis and Major Wilhelm Bach surrendered there on the 17th of January. Across Bardia, Sollum and Halfaya, the Eighth Army took roughly 13,800 prisoners in all.
On the 21st of January 1942, Rommel launched a surprise attack from El Agheila, intended only as a reconnaissance in force. Finding the Eighth Army's forward units scattered and exhausted, he pressed the advantage and drove the British back to Gazala, where both sides regrouped. The Battle of Gazala would open at the end of May 1942.
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Common questions
What was Operation Crusader?
Operation Crusader was a British Eighth Army offensive against Axis forces in North Africa, fought from the 18th of November to the 30th of December 1941. Its aim was to bypass the Axis frontier defences, destroy the Axis armour near Tobruk, lift the siege of that port and retake Cyrenaica.
When did Operation Crusader begin?
Operation Crusader began before dawn on the 18th of November 1941, when the Eighth Army crossed the Libyan border near Fort Maddalena in a surprise attack. Rommel was not in Africa when the attack started, having been convinced by a deception plan that no assault was imminent.
Who commanded the Axis forces during Operation Crusader?
Generalleutnant Erwin Rommel commanded the Axis forces during Operation Crusader, leading Panzergruppe Afrika, which he had commanded since July 1941. The Deutsches Afrika Korps within it was led by Lieutenant-General Ludwig Crüwell.
How many tanks did the Eighth Army lose in the opening days of Operation Crusader?
The Eighth Army lost 530 tanks between the 18th and the 22nd of November 1941, the first four days of Operation Crusader. Axis forces lost about 100 tanks over the same period.
Why was General Cunningham replaced during Operation Crusader?
Lieutenant-General Alan Cunningham was replaced after he grew alarmed by British tank losses and, on the 23rd of November 1941, asked Auchinleck whether the operation should continue. Auchinleck ordered him to press on regardless of losses, then had him relieved on the advice of Air Marshal Tedder and replaced with Major-General Neil Ritchie.
How did Operation Crusader end and what did the Eighth Army gain from it?
Operation Crusader ended with Axis forces withdrawn to El Agheila by the 30th of December 1941, after the siege of Tobruk was lifted on the 27th of November. The Eighth Army then captured Bardia on the 2nd of January 1942, Sollum on the 12th of January and the Halfaya position on the 17th of January, taking about 13,800 prisoners. Rommel's surprise attack from El Agheila on the 21st of January 1942 then drove the Eighth Army back to Gazala.
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