Siege of Tobruk

• 1. Introduction

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  The siege of Tobruk lasted 231 days in 1941, and the garrison that endured it became known as the Rats of Tobruk. Most of the defenders belonged to the 9th Australian Division, commanded by Lieutenant-General Leslie Morshead. They were trapped in a North African port by German and Italian forces, with the sea at their backs and the desert all around.

  Three questions run through this story. Why did one harbour on the Libyan coast matter so much to the German commander Erwin Rommel? What did it take to stay alive under shells, dive-bombers and desert storms? And who finally broke the ring around the port, and how?

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• 2. The Desert Stage

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  The Western Desert ran about 240 miles from Mersa Matruh in Egypt to Gazala on the Libyan coast, and only one paved road crossed it. That road, the Via Balbia, is also called the Libyan Coastal Highway. Inland, a raised and flat plain of stony ground, about 500 feet above sea level, stretched for 200-300 kilometres to a sand sea. Scorpions, vipers and flies lived there, alongside a small number of nomads.

  Bedouin tracks linked the wells to the firmest ground. Travellers found their way by sun, star and compass, and by "desert sense," a feel for the surroundings gained through experience. Even so, people got lost. When Italian troops advanced into Egypt in September 1940, the Maletti Group lost its way after leaving Sidi Omar and had to be found by aircraft.

  In spring and summer, the days were hot and the nights cold. The sirocco, a hot wind, carried fine sand that cut visibility to a few metres. It coated eyes, lungs, machinery, food and equipment. Vehicles and aircraft needed special oil filters, and the barren ground meant that an army had to haul in everything it used.

  German tank engines that might have lasted 1400-1600 miles managed only 300-900 miles in these conditions. German and Italian vehicles shared few standard parts, which made repairs harder still. Even the ground itself was awkward, a hard surface that dropped to sea level in steps, with the coast cut by ravines.

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• 3. A Port Changes Hands

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  In January 1941, Lieutenant-General Richard O'Connor's British XIII Corps surrounded Tobruk as part of Operation Compass. The Italian XXII Corps defended it under General Enrico Pitassi Mannella, behind an outer ring of dug-in strongpoints with concrete walls. An anti-tank ditch lay further in, in places behind barbed wire or laced with booby traps.

  The Royal Navy opened the assault after a fortnight of blockade. On the night of the 20th of January, the monitor HMS Terror, under Captain Hector Waller, bombarded the defences. Destroyers kept a screen further out in case the cruiser San Giorgio tried to break out. British artillery shelled the town from 5:00 to 7:00 a.m. on the 21st. Then the 2/3rd Australian Infantry Battalion attacked and rapidly breached the perimeter. By evening, nearly half of the Italian defences had fallen.

  On the 22nd of January, the naval command surrendered. By 4:00 p.m., the remaining Italian forces under General della Mura had also given up. Pitassi Mannella had been taken prisoner earlier that morning.

  In February 1941, with the Italian 10th Army and the 5° Squadra of the Regia Aeronautica beaten, Allied leaders decided to hold the area with minimal forces. They sent the rest of the Western Desert Force to Greece. What stayed behind was thin. The 9th Australian Division and the British 2nd Armoured Division, under Major-General Michael Gambier-Parry, were left to garrison Cyrenaica, minus a brigade that went to Greece.

  Most of the British tanks were worn out, and the captured Fiat M13/40 tanks used by one regiment were slow and unreliable. The 3rd Indian Motor Brigade arrived in late March with lorries but no tanks, artillery or anti-tank guns, and only half its wireless sets. Lieutenant-General Philip Neame, who took over Cyrenaica Command in February, predicted that the armoured division would lose many tanks to breakdowns if it had to move far. General Wavell and headquarters in Egypt believed the Germans could not attack before May.

  Adolf Hitler felt compelled to send reinforcements under Generalleutnant Erwin Rommel to rescue his beleaguered Italian ally. Rommel launched Operation Sonnenblume, which would drive the Allies back across Libya to the Egyptian border. On the 24th of March 1941, he advanced with the new Deutsches Afrikakorps. On the 3rd of April, Gambier-Parry received a report that a large armoured force was heading for Msus, site of the main divisional supply dump. When the 3rd Armoured Brigade arrived, the petrol had been destroyed to keep it from being captured. Losses and breakdowns had cut the brigade to 12 cruiser tanks, 20 light tanks and 20 Italian tanks.

  On the 5th of April, orders began changing faster than units could follow. News of a large Axis force advancing on El Abiar led Neame to send the 9th Australian Division back to Wadi Cuff. Other reports led him to cancel those orders, which left the Australians badly confused.

  At Mechili on the 8th of April, Gambier-Parry chose a dawn breakout after the Germans twice tried to bluff him into surrendering. A squadron of the 18th Cavalry broke through, and small parties of the 2nd Royal Lancers escaped. Most of the garrison stayed pinned down. They had fired nearly all their small arms ammunition at the vision slits of German tanks, which were hanging back for fear of mines. When Italian infantry attacked, almost nothing was left. Gambier-Parry and 2,700-3,000 British, Indian and Australian troops surrendered to the 17th Infantry Division Pavia, under General Pietro Zaglio.

  The night before, the 9th Australian Division and the British 2nd Support Group had already blocked the Via Balbia at Acroma, about 15 miles west of Tobruk. There the 18th and 24th Infantry Brigades were preparing defences.

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• 4. Rommel's Supply Problem

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  Tripoli, the one major port left to the Axis after Operation Compass, could take four troopships or five cargo ships at a time. That came to roughly 45,000 long tons a month. From Tripoli to Benghazi was 600 miles along the Via Balbia, only halfway to Alexandria. The road could flood and was exposed to the Desert Air Force, and the alternative desert tracks wore out vehicles faster. Once the Axis advanced 300 miles to the Egyptian frontier, the road haul stretched to 1100 miles.

  Benghazi fell in April, but coastal shipping could carry only 15,000 long tons there, and the port sat within range of Allied aircraft. Tobruk could handle about 1500 long tons a day and lay far closer to the frontier than Benghazi, which was 900 kilometres to the west. Yet a lack of shipping meant that taking Tobruk would have mattered less than it seemed.

  A German motorised division needed 350 long tons a day, and carrying that supply 300 miles took 1,170 two-ton lorries. Seven Axis divisions, plus air and naval units, needed 70,000 long tons a month. Vichy France agreed that Bizerta could be used, yet nothing passed through it until late 1942.

  From February to May 1941, a surplus of 45,000 long tons was delivered. In May, the worst month for ship losses, 91% of supplies still arrived. The Italians, however, had only 7,000 lorries to serve 225,000 men, and German supplies piled up in Tripoli for lack of transport in Libya. A record amount arrived in June, but shortages at the front grew worse.

  As Axis attacks on Malta eased from June, the share of ships sunk climbed from 19% in July to 25% in September. That month Benghazi was bombed, and ships were diverted to Tripoli. Deliveries averaged 72,000 long tons a month from July to October. But road transport burned 30-50 percent of the fuel delivered, and 35 percent of trucks were unserviceable.

  In November, a five-ship convoy was sunk during Operation Crusader, and ground attacks on road convoys ended daytime journeys. From the 4th of December, the retreat to El Agheila crowded the Via Balbia, where Allied ambushes destroyed about half of the remaining Axis transport. On the 5th of December, Comando Supremo told Rommel that supply could not improve until the end of the month, when airborne deliveries from Sicily would begin.

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• 5. Digging In

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  Work on Tobruk's fortifications began in March 1941, on top of what the Italians had left. They had built two lines of concrete bunkers, 8-9 miles from the port. That gave a perimeter about 30 miles long, far enough out to keep enemy artillery away from the harbour.

  Few defences stood in between, except at the Bardia-El Adem road junction. The barbed wire was in disrepair, and the anti-tank ditch was unfinished. The Allies picked a second line about 2 miles behind the perimeter and worked on it while repairing the outer one.

  Two battalions of the Australian 24th Infantry Brigade and the newly arrived 18th Brigade took over the perimeter. The 18th had come from Egypt by sea after the dispatch of the 7th Australian Division to Greece was cancelled. The 20th and 26th Brigades covered the approaches from outside until the 9th of April. Once inside, the 9th Division's three brigades took over the defences, and the 18th went into reserve. A cadre of the British 3rd Armoured Brigade was refitting in the port with 15 light tanks, 26 cruiser tanks and a troop of four infantry tanks.

  Morshead's battalions each held 5 miles of front. He warned that a break-in should be expected wherever the attackers made a serious effort. Any breach had to be wiped out, because there would be no withdrawal.

  On the 11th and the 12th of April, the 5th Panzer Regiment probed the 20th Australian Brigade near the El Adem road. Artillery held off the tanks, and Australian infantry drove back German infantry who reached the anti-tank ditch. The Germans were surprised. They had assumed the ships in the harbour were evacuating the garrison. They planned a night attack for the 13th and the 14th of April.

  The attack began after dark, west of the El Adem road, where the 2/17th Australian Battalion repulsed the first attempt. A second try left a small bridgehead by dawn. Through it, the 5th Panzer Regiment drove and turned north, ready to split. One column was meant for the harbour, and the other was to head west and cut off the garrison's escape.

  The German tanks met the 1st Royal Horse Artillery head on and veered away. They drove straight into British cruiser tanks waiting hull-down, and fire came from three sides. The Germans lost sixteen of 38 tanks before retreating. As they fell back, every gun and aircraft at Tobruk fired into the area. The German 8th Machine-Gun Battalion lost about 75 percent of its men, including its commander, Gustav Ponath. The garrison lost 26 men killed and 64 wounded, with two tanks and a field gun knocked out.

  On the 16th of April, Rommel led an attack from the west, with the Ariete Division reinforced by the 62nd Infantry Regiment of the Trento Division. The 2/48th Australian Battalion counter-attacked and took 803 prisoners. Later, Ariete tanks reached the most advanced Australian posts, found their own infantry had not followed, and retired after five tanks were knocked out.

  Morshead told the garrison to exploit the disorder, since the enemy could not dig in quickly on stony ground. On the 22nd of April, a company of the 2/48th, three infantry tanks and a troop of 25-pounders raided a hillock south-west of Ras el Medauar. They destroyed two guns and took 370 prisoners. In a costly attack across the Derna road, a company of the 2/23rd Battalion took about 100 prisoners from the Brescia Division. That led the Germans to hurry the 15th Panzer Division from Tripoli.

  On the 27th of April, Major-General Friedrich Paulus, a deputy chief of the General Staff, arrived from Berlin to question Rommel about his intentions. Paulus held back approval until he had studied the situation. On the 29th, he allowed the attack to go ahead, as did General Italo Gariboldi, who had arrived the day before.

  The blow fell at 8:00 p.m. on the 30th of April, on either side of the hillock at Ras el Medauar. The 5th Light Division and the 15th Panzer Division, which had only recently reached Africa, struck the 26th Australian Brigade. The Australians had already endured bombing and shellfire the day before. By 9:30 p.m., the Germans had a small bridgehead. But several Australian posts held out, and the Italian troops could not reach their objectives.

  A thick mist rose in the morning. German tanks heading east instead of south-east ran into a new minefield, where anti-tank guns repulsed them. Paulus judged the attack a failure. The Axis had overrun the perimeter on a 3-mile front to a depth of 2 miles, and won higher ground useful for observation. The price was 650 German and 500 Italian casualties. Paulus ordered that no more attacks be made unless the Allies were evacuating the port.

  The Twin Pimples were two close hills outside Tobruk, overlooking the perimeter. The Italian Army held them, and the 18th King Edward's Own Cavalry held the line opposite. On the night of the 17th and the 18th of July, 43 men of No. 8 Commando and some Australian engineers crossed the Italian lines undetected at 11:00 p.m. They aimed to strike from behind.

  The raiders took cover at a supply road until 1:00 a.m. and then edged forward just before the 18th Cavalry's diversion. That drew Italian machine-gun fire and flares. The Commandos got within 30 yards of the hills before a challenge, and then they attacked. The password Jock marked each captured position. The engineers planted explosives on several mortars and an ammunition dump. The plan assumed that Italian artillery would need 15 minutes to open fire on the captured trenches. The raiders were only about 100 yards away when shells began to land on the position they had just left.

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• 6. Sky and Sea

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  In February 1941, Fliegerkorps X sent 150-200 aircraft from Sicily to Libya, and Tobruk felt them almost at once. They flew dive-bomber sorties by day and medium-bomber raids by day and night. Their targets were the docks, buildings, anti-aircraft sites, artillery positions and airfields. In support of the April assault, the Luftwaffe and Regia Aeronautica flew 959 sorties over Tobruk. On the 14th of April, 40 Ju 87s bombed the defences. On the 27th day of the siege, 50 aircraft swamped the defences, which let a full staffel of 12 concentrate on each heavy anti-aircraft gun until a battery was destroyed.

  At least ten Hawker Hurricane fighters were based at the port during the day. On the 19th of April, Hurricanes of 73 and 274 Squadrons intercepted a Ju 87 raid with a fighter escort. Two days later, 73 Squadron was down to five operational aircraft with very tired pilots. On the 25th of April, it was withdrawn.

  On the 24th of April, Air Commodore Raymond Collishaw, who commanded 204 Group RAF, wrote to Air Marshal Arthur Tedder that the air situation had rapidly worsened. Attrition, he said, had caused "a serious reduction in our fighter force." The arrival of two German fighter wings, Jagdgeschwader 27 and Zerstörergeschwader 26, let enemy formations reach great height within ten minutes of a raid warning. That left British fighters lower and at a disadvantage. As of the 23rd of April, 274 Squadron had only 13 fighters, and Collishaw was "loathe to send them to Tobruk."

  Air Marshal Arthur Longmore cabled the Air Ministry in London to ask for reinforcements and fresh pilots. He argued that fighters refuelling on the ground at Tobruk, without patrols overhead, were "hostage to a fortune we cannot afford." On the 1st of May, 274 Squadron lost all six Hurricanes it sent on a single mission. Bf 109s of JG 27, led by Gerhard Homuth, attacked from a superior altitude. They included Hans-Joachim Marseille, described in the record as the most successful fighter pilot in Africa.

  From the 10th of April to the 14th of May, 73 Squadron lost 15 fighters and had five more damaged, with five pilots killed. 274 Squadron lost six fighters, with three pilots killed and two captured. Across all RAF units, the toll was 31 aircraft. German losses in the same period were lower. JG 27 lost four fighters and three pilots killed.

  By the end of April, virtually all fighters based at Tobruk had been withdrawn. The contest became one between gunners and German pilots. Tobruk's anti-aircraft artillery numbered 88 guns, 28 of them heavy, at 90 millimetres or above. Ships lent their weapons as well. The gunboat Ladybird, sunk in shallow water down to her deck, kept firing her 3-inch deck guns.

  The gunners changed tactics. Instead of a sustained barrage at one altitude, they laid a staggered and thickened belt of fire covering 1000 metres or more in height, so the Ju 87s had to fly through fire for longer. They also spread their fire from side to side, so pilots could not slip along the edge and underneath.

  At sea, the story was much the same. On the 4th of May, the hospital ship Kapara was damaged, which provoked fury on the Allied side. On the 25th of May, Italian Ju 87s of 97 Gruppo sank the 3,741-ton tanker Helka before it could reach Tobruk. Their unit, 239 Squadriglia, became among the most successful over the port. On the 24th of June, it sank the sloop Auckland, and then the destroyer Waterhen.

  After the loss of the supply ships Fiona and Chakla in April, the Mediterranean Fleet's destroyers had to run supplies in daylight. Moonlit nights proved hazardous too. On the 26th and the 27th of October 1941, I/StG 1 attacked a convoy carrying 7,000 British and Polish soldiers and munitions toward Tobruk. A direct hit sank the Latona, of 2,650 tons, and the destroyer Hero was badly damaged.

  From the 11th of April to the 10th of December, ships took 47,280 men out of Tobruk and brought 34,113 in. They also delivered 33,946 long tons of stores. On the night of the 12th of April, six destroyers and two cruisers swept the coast from Ras Tayones to Ras et Tin, and bombardments along the Libyan coast continued through the month.

  The raid on Bardia, planned for the night of the 19th and the 20th of April, was meant to disrupt Axis communications and damage installations. 'A' Battalion of Layforce and a troop of Royal Tank Regiment tanks were to land on four beaches from Landing Craft Assault. One craft could not be lowered, and others were hard to release. No guide lights shone on the run-in, because the advance Folbot section had been delayed when its submarine dived to evade Allied aircraft that had mistakenly attacked it.

  The force landed late, on the wrong beaches, and met no opposition. The port was empty of Axis forces, and faulty intelligence meant that some objectives were missed and others did not exist. The Commandos destroyed an Italian supply dump and a coastal artillery battery before re-embarking. Seventy men went to the wrong evacuation beach and were captured.

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• 7. Relief Attempts

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  On the 15th of May 1941, Operation Brevity opened with the aim of wearing down Axis forces and securing positions for a larger push toward Tobruk. A small tank-infantry force in three columns seized the top of Halfaya Pass, Bir Wair and Musaid, then took Fort Capuzzo. A German counter-attack recovered Musaid. By the next day, Allied retirements had left everything except Halfaya Pass in German hands.

  On the 26th of May, Operation Skorpion ejected the Allies from the pass as well. The Allies suffered 206 casualties and five tanks destroyed. German casualties were 258 men, and the Italians had 395, of whom 347 were captured. Meanwhile, on the 12th of May, the Tiger convoy lost one ship and reached Alexandria with 238 tanks and 43 aircraft.

  Operation Battleaxe, fought from the 15th to the 17th of June 1941, aimed to lift the siege and capture eastern Cyrenaica. The 7th Armoured Division and a composite infantry force built on the 4th Indian Division headquarters were to attack around Bardia, Sollum, Halfaya and Capuzzo. The Tobruk garrison was told to stand by and not sortie until XIII Corps drew close.

  The Halfaya Pass attack failed. Point 206 was captured, but only one of three attacks on Hafid Ridge succeeded. At the end of the 15th, only 48 British tanks remained operational. On the 17th, the Allies evaded encirclement by two Panzer regiments and ended the operation.

  The Allies had 969 casualties, and 27 cruiser and 64 infantry tanks were knocked out or lost. The RAF lost 36 aircraft. German losses were 678 men, twelve tanks and ten aircraft. General Wavell, XIII Corps commander Lieutenant-General Noel Beresford-Peirse and 7th Armoured Division commander Major-General Michael O'Moore Creagh were sacked. Claude Auchinleck took over as Commander-in-Chief of the Middle East.

  In mid-1941, Blamey, commander of the Australian Imperial Force, asked with the Australian government's support for the 9th Division to be withdrawn. He wrote that its health had deteriorated until it could no longer resist an attack. He also wanted to unite Australian forces in the Middle East. Auchinleck agreed but noted that so large a movement could only be made by fast warships in moonless periods, to evade air attack.

  The withdrawal began in the August moonless period. From the 19th to the 29th of August, 6,116 men of the Polish Carpathian Independent Rifle Brigade and the Czechoslovak 11th Infantry Battalion were landed, with 1297 long tons of stores. The navy took out 5,040 men of the 18th Australian Infantry Brigade and the Indian 18th King Edward's Own Cavalry.

  From the 19th to the 27th of September, the British 16th Infantry Brigade and elements of the 70th Infantry Division, under Major-General Ronald Scobie, arrived. They brought 6,308 men and more than 2000 long tons of supplies, while 5,989 men of the 24th Australian Infantry Brigade left, without the loss of a ship. From the 12th to the 25th of October, the rest of the 70th Infantry Division was delivered and most of the Australians removed. Ship losses on regular runs meant the 2/13th Australian Battalion and two companies of the 2/15th stayed. Command of the garrison passed from Morshead to Scobie.

  Operation Crusader began on the 18th of November 1941, with an outflanking move that brought the Eighth Army within 48 kilometres of the Tobruk perimeter. The 70th Infantry Division broke out to strike the Axis positions and meet the 7th Armoured Division, advancing north from Sidi Rezegh. The attack surprised Rommel, who had underestimated both the garrison and its tanks.

  A three-pronged assault by the 2nd King's Own, the 2nd Battalion of the Black Watch and the 2nd Queen's Own went after a series of strongpoints leading to Ed Duda. By mid-afternoon they had gained about 3.5 miles, and then they paused as it became clear the 7th Armoured Division would not arrive. The Black Watch charge on strongpoint Tiger, under massed machine-gun fire, cost 201 casualties.

  The reason lay to the south. At 7:45 a.m. on the 21st of November, patrols reported about 200 tanks approaching from the south-east. The 7th Armoured Brigade turned to meet them, and without its tanks the northward attack failed. By the end of that day, only 40 of the brigade's 160 tanks were operational.

  On the 23rd of November, Rommel sent the Afrika Korps toward the Egyptian border in the Dash to the Wire, hoping to destroy XXX Corps. The blow mostly struck empty desert and gave the Eighth Army time to regroup and re-arm. The Afrika Korps was then ordered back to Tobruk, where the 70th Infantry Division and the New Zealand Division had gained the initiative.

  On the 26th of November, Scobie ordered an attack on the Ed Duda ridge. In the early hours of the 27th, the garrison captured it and met a small force of New Zealanders advancing from the south. On the 4th of December, the 14th Infantry Brigade of the 70th Infantry Division repulsed Rommel's attack on Ed Duda. Rommel ordered a retirement from Tobruk's eastern perimeter to concentrate against XXX Corps. He then decided to abandon Tobruk altogether and withdraw to Gazala, which led to the relief of the port and the occupation of Cyrenaica.

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• 8. The Reckoning

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  General Wavell ordered Morshead to defend Tobruk for eight weeks, and the Australians held on for over five months. Their replacements then kept an 8-mile corridor open for several days, unsupported.

  The Tobruk Ferry Service, made up of Royal Navy and Royal Australian Navy warships, paid heavily for its work. It provided gunfire support, supplies and fresh troops, and carried out the wounded. Naval casualties came to 780, with 539 killed or missing and 241 wounded. That total included 125 merchant seamen. Over the course of the siege, 62 ships were sunk or damaged.

  The Rats of Tobruk suffered at least 3,836 casualties, with 855 killed, 2,487 wounded and 494 missing. Of those, 3,194 were Australian. The 70th Infantry Division, which came later, had 2,153 casualties of its own. The Australian and British official histories differ slightly on the Australian figures. Maughan, in the Australian history, counted 9th Australian Division casualties from the 8th of April to the 25th of October as 746 killed, 1,996 wounded and 604 prisoners. He recorded that 467 Australians were captured during the siege itself.

  Axis losses were also heavy. Italian casualties from the 15th of February to the 18th of November were 1,130 killed, 4,255 wounded and 3,851 missing. Libyan losses were 184 killed. German casualties for the same period were about 538 killed, 1,657 wounded and about 681 missing. Between 74 and 150 Axis aircraft were shot down.

  For the Allies, Tobruk was the only significant port east of Benghazi and west of Alexandria. Sea transport into it could have eased the supply of Axis troops on the Egyptian frontier. The siege was also the first occasion in the war that German Panzer units had been stopped. Yet the port did not stay in Allied hands. Axis forces recaptured it on the 21st of June 1942, after defeating the Eighth Army in the Battle of Gazala.

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