Operation Battleaxe (15–17 June 1941) was a British Army offensive during the Second World War to raise the Siege of Tobruk and re-capture eastern Cyrenaica from German and Italian forces. It was the first time during the war that a significant German force fought on the defensive. The British lost over half of their tanks on the first day and only one of three attacks succeeded.
The British achieved mixed results on the second day, being pushed back on their western flank and repulsing a big German counter-attack in the centre. On the third day, the British narrowly avoided disaster by withdrawing just ahead of a German encircling movement. The failure of Battleaxe led to the replacement of British General Sir Archibald Wavell, commander-in-chief Middle East, by Claude Auchinleck; Wavell took Auchinleck's position as commander-in-chief, India.
Background
Unternehmen Sonnenblume/Operation Sunflower
In late March 1941, soon after the arrival of the Afrika Korps in Tripoli, Libya to reinforce the Italians, the Axis forces quickly captured the British front line position at El Agheila and by mid-April, had reached as far as Sallum, Egypt. The British held the fortified port of Tobruk, which was besieged by the Axis. Having been informed by General Wavell that the Western Desert Force was vastly inferior to the Axis forces now in Africa, Churchill ordered that a convoy of tanks and Hawker Hurricanes, Operation Tiger (Convoy WS 58), be sailed through the Mediterranean instead of around the Cape of Good Hope to cut forty days off the journey.
Tobruk
The German Armed Forces High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht) sent General Friedrich Paulus to Africa to investigate the situation. On 12 May, Paulus, after witnessing one of Rommel's failed attempts to assault Tobruk, sent a report to OKW describing Rommel's position as weak, with critical shortages of both fuel and ammunition. With Operation Barbarossa imminent, Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch, Commander-in-Chief of the German Army, ordered Rommel not to advance further or attack Tobruk again.
Operation Brevity
Through Ultra intercepts, the British also received the report by Paulus. Churchill, believing that one strong push would dislodge German forces, began to increase the pressure on Wavell to attack. Operation Brevity was quickly planned as a limited operation to seize Sollum, Halfaya Pass and Fort Capuzzo, then advance on Sidi Aziz and Tobruk. The operation was to continue as far as supply would allow but not risk the forces committed; the objective was to destroy as much Axis equipment as possible and secure a foothold for the larger Operation Battleaxe, once the new tanks were made available. Brevity began on 15 May and Fort Capuzzo and Halfaya Pass were captured but next day William Gott, concerned that his 22nd Guards Brigade would be destroyed if caught in the open by Germans tanks, decided to pull almost the entire force back to Halfaya Pass. The operation ended on 17 May, with only the Halfaya Pass captured. The pass was retaken by a small German force on 27 May, in Operation Skorpion.
Greece and Crete
By the end of May, the Greek island of Crete had been captured in the Battle of Crete, providing the Luftwaffe with more airfields from which to attack Allied shipping and protect their supply convoys and troops in Cyrenaica; delaying Battleaxe could mean stronger Axis opposition. The British Chiefs of Staff stated that it was imperative that control be wrested in the area between Sollum and Derna and British air power be re-established there.
Prelude
Tiger Convoy
On 12 May, the Tiger convoy arrived in Alexandria with 238 tanks and 43 Hurricanes consisting of 21 Light Tank Mk VI, 82 Cruiser tanks (including fifty of the new Crusader tanks) and 135 Matilda II Infantry tanks. There were delays in unloading the tanks, which also had to be adapted for desert use, so Battleaxe was postponed until 10 June. The tanks were intended for the 7th Armoured Division, which had been out of action since February, after most of its tanks had worn out during Operation Compass.
British plan
On 28 May, Wavell gave his orders for Operation Battleaxe, an operation in three stages; the Axis forces were to be defeated on the frontier and the area of Halfaya, Sollum, Capuzzo and Sidi Aziez was to be secured. In the second phase, XIII Corps was to secure the area around Tobruk and El Adem, then the areas of Derna and Mechili were to be captured. The plan was based on intelligence information, which incorrectly indicated that 2⁄3 of the German tank strength was at Tobruk, which would put the British at a decisive material advantage on the frontier. The attack was originally scheduled for 7 June, but was pushed back at the insistence of General O'Moore Creagh, whose squadrons did not receive their tanks until 9 June. The new date was 15 June, giving Creagh five days for additional training.
In the first stage, the British would advance in a three-prong assault to clear the frontier region. Along the coast was Coast Force and inland was Escarpment Force. The former was responsible for capturing Halfaya Pass, while the latter was to capture the remainder of the frontier at Fort Capuzzo, Musaid and Sollum. The 7th Armoured Brigade Group and the artillery of the Support Group were to engage and destroy the German tanks, which were thought to be at Hafid Ridge. This would also trap Axis units on the frontier between themselves and the remainder of the British forces. After capturing the frontier, the brigades of the 7th Armoured Division would reform and continue north to relieve Tobruk. Once joined by the Tobruk garrison, the combined forces would press on to the west, driving the Germans as far back as possible.
Three days prior to the start of Battleaxe, to help soften the Axis forces, the Royal Air Force was to bomb Benghazi while all aircraft capable of ground attack were to bomb Axis movement on the frontier. Once the battle began, fighters were to patrol defensively over Allied ground forces, while medium bombers were to stand by to engage Axis columns. Such was the priority on Battleaxe that Arthur Tedder (air officer commander-in-chief, Middle East) was instructed by the Chiefs of Staff to accept significant risks in other theatres by diverting all possible air support for it. Beresford-Peirse and Tedder established headquarters well to the rear, at Sidi Barrani and Maaten Baggush. Beresford-Peirse chose Sidi Barrani as, even though it was more than a five-hour drive from the battlefield, it was equipped with the most advanced airfield for reconnaissance aircraft and was also the most forward position from which communications could be maintained with Maaten Baggush.
Axis preparations
Though Brevity had failed to yield any territory to the British, it showed Rommel that his front line defences were quite easy to breach. Anticipating further British attacks, the Axis forces created a line of fortified positions from Halfaya to Sidi Aziz, placing a number of anti-tank guns and anti-tank mines on the Halfaya Pass, Point 206 (south of Forth Capuzzo) and on Point 208 (west of Fort Capuzzo on the Hafid Ridge). The primary responsibility of the frontier defence was charged to the 15th Panzer Division, which had received a new commander, General Walter Neumann-Silkow, on 8 June. Poor signals security in the 7th Armoured Division gave Rommel nine hours notice of the operation. Rommel sent the 5th Light Division to the south of Tobruk, ready to use it against either the Sollum area or on Tobruk and ordered a big artillery bombardment of Tobruk the night before the operation, to prevent the Allied garrison from breaking out.
Unfortunately, our petrol stocks were badly depleted, and it was with some anxiety that we contemplated the coming British attack, for we knew that our moves would be decided more by the petrol gauge than by tactical requirements.
— Rommel
Battle
15 June
For the RAF, everything went according to plan on the first day. Axis supply columns and airfields had been hit repeatedly up to the start of the attack and once the operation began, and British columns were able to move unmolested from their starting points at Sofafi and Buq-Buq to their destinations covered by RAF fighters. Axis aircraft managed only six attacks that day. On the eastern side, at 05:15, Coast Force—commanded by Brigadier Reginald Savory and charged with capturing Halfaya Pass, started to move on to their objective. On the escarpment was the Halfaya Group, composed of the 2nd Battalion Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders, the 13 tanks (twelve Matildas and one light tank) of C Squadron, 4th Royal Tank Regiment (which had captured Halfaya Pass during Operation Brevity) and an artillery battery from the 31st Field Regiment. To their east and below the lip of the escarpment were the 1st Battalion 6th Rajputana Rifles and 2nd Battalion 5th Mahratta Light Infantry, two troops of A Squadron, 4th Royal Tank Regiment and a few 25-pounder guns.
At 05:40, British artillery for the Halfaya Group was scheduled to open fire on the German and Italian forces in Halfaya, to cover the tanks and infantry but the battery had become bogged down by soft sand. After waiting until 06:00, 15 minutes after the fighting began to the west below the escarpment, the commander of C Squadron ordered his tanks to attack at the top of the pass; soon after, the anti-tank guns of the defenders opened fire and within a few hours all but one light tank and one of the Matildas had been destroyed, including Miles' own. The Cameron Highlanders were soon driven back by a detachment of German armoured cars and motorised infantry. Below the escarpment four of the Matildas were disabled by anti-tank mines which were supposed to have been cleared; this blocked the path of the remaining two and reduced the small tank force to acting in a pillbox capacity. The Rajputana Rifles and Mahrattas made several attempts to reach the pass but were repelled each time; the former lost their commanding officer in the final attack.
In the centre, the 7th Royal Tank Regiment reached Fort Capuzzo by noon and scattered the defenders, who retreated north to join the 15th Panzer Division, between them and Bardia. Soon afterwards, they faced several counter-attacks by a battalion from the 8th Panzer Regiment of the 15th Panzer Division. After being joined by the 22nd Guards Brigade, they faced the final and largest counter-attack at 18:30 but managed to repulse it. These were not serious assaults, as Rommel would not commit the 15th Panzer Division to battle without more information on the situation. The 8th Panzer Regiment skirmished briefly and then feigned a disorderly retreat to lure Matilda tanks into a chase into range of concealed anti-tank guns. Neither side took much damage from these actions. In response to the British capture of Capuzzo and concerned with a possible attack on Sollum and Bardia, Rommel ordered the 5th Light Division to Sidi Azeiz ready for a possible counter-attack.
The rest of the 4th Royal Tank Regiment had been used as a flank guard for the 7th Royal Tank Regiment. While B Squadron was kept in reserve, the three remaining troops of A Squadron (12 tanks) had initial success against Battle Position (B.P.) 38, capturing 200 Axis prisoners and eight field guns with virtually no loss. These gains were lost when A Squadron were repelled at Point 206 and German forces counter-attacked at B.P. 38. In the evening, after A Squadron was down to only one remaining tank, the sixteen tanks of B Squadron were brought into action and Point 206 was captured. In capturing these objectives, the British also took over 500 German and Italian prisoners. That night, the 2nd Scots Guards—a battalion of the 22nd Guards Brigade—were able to advance further eastward and capture an outpost at Musaid.
On the western side, the 7th Armoured Brigade had placed the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment, equipped with older cruiser tanks, in front of the 6th Royal Tank Regiment to use their new Crusader tanks as a surprise. The force reached Hafid Ridge (which actually consisted of three ridges) by about 09:00. After 2nd Royal Tank Regiment had crossed over the first ridge, they were attacked at near point-blank range by dug in anti-tank guns, destroying two A9 cruiser tanks before the rest could retreat. This development posed a serious problem for the brigade, as the cruiser tanks were armed with 2-pounder anti-tank guns which lacked the High Explosive (HE) rounds needed to engage infantry and artillery. Artillery support was not available as it was attached to the Support Group in the south-west, was covering the 7th Armoured Brigade's flank.