Battle of Kufra (31 January 1941)

The Capture of Kufra (French: Prise de Koufra, Italian: Cufra) was part of the Allied Western Desert Campaign during the Second World War. Kufra is a group of oases in the Kufra District of south-eastern Cyrenaica in the Libyan Desert. In 1940, it was part of the colony of Italian Libya Libia Italiana, which was part of Africa Settentrionale Italiana (ASI), which had been established in 1934. With some early assistance from the British Long Range Desert Group, Kufra was besieged from 31 January to 1 March 1941 by Free French forces from French Equatorial Africa which forced the surrender of the Italian and Libyan garrison.

The Oath

On 1 March, General Leclerc and his men swore the following oath,

Jurez de ne déposer les armes, que le jour où nos couleurs, nos belles couleurs, flotteront sur la Cathédrale de Strasbourg.

Swear to not lay down arms, until the day when our colours, our beautiful colours, fly over Strasbourg Cathedral.

The oath was fulfilled when, on 23 November 1944, the 2nd Armoured Division, led by Leclerc, liberated the city of Strasbourg. A Spahi from Louis Dio's 5th Squadron was responsible for raising the Free French flag upon the Cathedral.

Text from the Wikipedia article “Capture of Kufra”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

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Text from the Wikipedia article “Battle of Kufra”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Battle of Kufra

The Oath

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The Oath