The Axis capture of Tobruk, also known as the Fall of Tobruk and the Second Battle of Tobruk (17–21 June 1942) was part of the Western Desert campaign in Libya during the Second World War. The battle was fought by the Panzerarmee Afrika (Armata Corazzata Africa in Italian), a German–Italian military force in North Africa which included the Afrika Korps (Generalleutnant Erwin Rommel), against the British Eighth Army (General Neil Ritchie) which comprised contingents from Britain, India, South Africa and other Allied nations.
Axis forces had conducted the Siege of Tobruk for eight months in 1941 before its defenders, who had become an emblem of resistance, were relieved in December. Claude Auchinleck, the commander-in-chief Middle East Command, had decided not to defend Tobruk for a second time, due to the cost of bringing supplies in by sea; its minefields and barbed wire had been stripped for use in the Gazala Line to the west. By mid-1942 the Desert Air Force had been forced to move to airfields in Egypt, taking most of them beyond the range of Tobruk. About a third of all garrison personnel were non-combatant or support troops and many of the fighting troops were inexperienced. Lieutenant-General William Gott, the commander of XIII Corps, was withdrawn from Tobruk and on 15 June 1942, five days before the Axis attack. The new commander of the 2nd South African Division, Major-General Hendrik Klopper, was given command of the garrison. An immense stock of supplies had been accumulated around the port for Operation Acrobat but the Axis had forestalled this with Operation Venice (Unternehmen Venezia) and the Battle of Gazala began on 26 May 1942.
The Eighth Army was defeated in the Battle of Gazala and was driven eastwards toward the Egyptian border, leaving Tobruk isolated. The Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, placed great store on the symbolic value of Tobruk; an exchange of ambiguous signals between Churchill and Auchinleck led to the garrison being surrounded, rather than evacuated as intended. On 20 June the Panzerarmee Afrika attacked Tobruk with massed air support, penetrated a weak spot on the eastern defensive perimeter and captured the port. Much of the garrison on the western perimeter had not been attacked but they were cut off from their supplies and transport, without the means to escape from Tobruk. The majority had to surrender and 33,000 prisoners were taken.
The surrender was the second-largest capitulation by the British Army in the war, after the fall of Singapore in February 1942. The loss of Tobruk came as a severe blow to the British leadership and precipitated a political crisis in Britain. The United States expedited the dispatch of supplies and equipment to the Middle East. Rommel persuaded the Axis commanders that the supplies captured at Tobruk and the disorganised state of the British forces would enable the Axis easily to occupy Egypt and the Suez Canal. Operation Herkules, the Axis invasion of the island of Malta, was postponed and the Axis air forces instead supported the pursuit into Egypt, which suffered severe supply constraints as the Panzerarmee Afrika receded from its bases. The Axis advance was halted at the First Battle of Alamein in July 1942.
A British Court of Inquiry was held in absentia later in the year, which exonerated Klopper and ascribed the defeat to failures among the British high command. Only seven copies of the verdict were circulated, one being transmitted to General Jan Smuts on 2 October 1942. The findings were kept secret until after the war, which did little to restore the reputation of Klopper or his troops.
The Axis capture of Tobruk, also known as the Fall of Tobruk and the Second Battle of Tobruk (17–21 June 1942) was part of the Western Desert campaign in Libya during the Second World War. The battle was fought by the Panzerarmee Afrika (Armata Corazzata Africa in Italian), a German–Italian military force in North Africa which included the Afrika Korps (Generalleutnant Erwin Rommel), against the British Eighth Army (General Neil Ritchie) which comprised contingents from Britain, India, South Africa and other Allied nations.
Axis forces had conducted the Siege of Tobruk for eight months in 1941 before its defenders, who had become an emblem of resistance, were relieved in December. Claude Auchinleck, the commander-in-chief Middle East Command, had decided not to defend Tobruk for a second time, due to the cost of bringing supplies in by sea; its minefields and barbed wire had been stripped for use in the Gazala Line to the west. By mid-1942 the Desert Air Force had been forced to move to airfields in Egypt, taking most of them beyond the range of Tobruk. About a third of all garrison personnel were non-combatant or support troops and many of the fighting troops were inexperienced. Lieutenant-General William Gott, the commander of XIII Corps, was withdrawn from Tobruk and on 15 June 1942, five days before the Axis attack. The new commander of the 2nd South African Division, Major-General Hendrik Klopper, was given command of the garrison. An immense stock of supplies had been accumulated around the port for Operation Acrobat but the Axis had forestalled this with Operation Venice (Unternehmen Venezia) and the Battle of Gazala began on 26 May 1942.
The Eighth Army was defeated in the Battle of Gazala and was driven eastwards toward the Egyptian border, leaving Tobruk isolated. The Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, placed great store on the symbolic value of Tobruk; an exchange of ambiguous signals between Churchill and Auchinleck led to the garrison being surrounded, rather than evacuated as intended. On 20 June the Panzerarmee Afrika attacked Tobruk with massed air support, penetrated a weak spot on the eastern defensive perimeter and captured the port. Much of the garrison on the western perimeter had not been attacked but they were cut off from their supplies and transport, without the means to escape from Tobruk. The majority had to surrender and 33,000 prisoners were taken.
The surrender was the second-largest capitulation by the British Army in the war, after the fall of Singapore in February 1942. The loss of Tobruk came as a severe blow to the British leadership and precipitated a political crisis in Britain. The United States expedited the dispatch of supplies and equipment to the Middle East. Rommel persuaded the Axis commanders that the supplies captured at Tobruk and the disorganised state of the British forces would enable the Axis easily to occupy Egypt and the Suez Canal. Operation Herkules, the Axis invasion of the island of Malta, was postponed and the Axis air forces instead supported the pursuit into Egypt, which suffered severe supply constraints as the Panzerarmee Afrika receded from its bases. The Axis advance was halted at the First Battle of Alamein in July 1942.
A British Court of Inquiry was held in absentia later in the year, which exonerated Klopper and ascribed the defeat to failures among the British high command. Only seven copies of the verdict were circulated, one being transmitted to General Jan Smuts on 2 October 1942. The findings were kept secret until after the war, which did little to restore the reputation of Klopper or his troops.
Background
The small port of Tobruk in Italian Cyrenaica had been fortified by the Italians from 1935. Behind two old outlying forts, they constructed a novel fortification, consisting of a double line of concrete-lined trenches 54 km (34 mi) long, connecting 128 weapons pits protected by concealed anti-tank ditches but the fortifications lacked overhead protection and there was no defence in depth. Tobruk was captured by Australian forces in January 1941 during Operation Compass, the first large Allied military operation of the Western Desert Campaign. Following the arrival of the German Afrika Korps commanded by Erwin Rommel in Operation Sonnenblume in March, Axis forces retook much of the lost territory in Cyrenaica; Tobruk was cut off and besieged between April and December 1941.
Using the Italian defences, ill-organised attacks by Axis forces were defeated by the 30,000-strong Australian garrison (replaced in September by a British and Allied force), allowing time for the fortifications to be improved. The Allied occupation of Tobruk was a threat to the Axis communications. It denied them the use of the port and it tied down four Italian divisions and three German battalions (a force twice the size of the garrison). During 1941, supplied from the sea and surviving successive Axis assaults, the defence of Tobruk became a symbol of the British war effort. The relief of Tobruk was the object of Operation Brevity in May and Operation Battleaxe in June, both of which failed. Operation Crusader in November and December 1941 raised the siege and forced the Axis out of Cyrenaica into Tripolitania.
Supplied with more modern tanks, the second Axis offensive saw the reoccupation of western Cyrenaica but the Axis ran out of supplies to the west of Gazala. A lull followed as both sides prepared for a new offensive. The British built up the Gazala Line, fortified positions known as "boxes", defended by extensive minefields. The Axis forces forestalled the British with Unternehmen Venezia (known to the British as the Battle of Gazala), which began on 26 May 1942. Poorly armed and armoured British tanks and inferior co-ordination allowed Rommel to defeat the Eighth Army tanks piecemeal and by 13 June the British had begun to retreat eastwards from Gazala, leaving Tobruk vulnerable to attack.
Axis plans
On 1 May 1942, a meeting of Axis leaders was held at the Berghof in Berchtesgaden, with Adolf Hitler and Albert Kesselring, the WehrmachtOberbefehlshaber Süd (Commander-in-Chief South), Benito Mussolini and Ugo Cavallero, the Chief of the Defence Staff, for Italy. It was decided that Rommel should start Unternehmen Venezia (Operation Venice), an offensive at the end of May, to capture Tobruk. If successful, Rommel was to go no further east than the Egyptian border and take up defensive positions while an invasion of Malta (Operation Herkules) was undertaken in mid-July. The capture of Malta would secure the Axis supply lines to North Africa before Rommel invaded Egypt, with the Suez Canal as the final objective. Axis planning had been given considerable assistance after the Italian Servizio Informazioni Militare (Military Information Service) had broken the Black Code used by Colonel Bonner Fellers, the US military attaché in Cairo, to send detailed and often critical reports to Washington of the British war effort in the Middle East.
British plans
In a meeting held in Cairo on 4 February 1942, the service commanders-in-chief of Middle East Command considered what their course of action should be in the event of a further successful Axis offensive, the front line at that time being only 30 mi (48 km) west of Tobruk. The commanders knew how valuable the port would be to Axis forces but decided against defending it. General Sir Claude Auchinleck was reluctant to have a valuable division tied down as a garrison, especially as reinforcements might be urgently needed for Persia and Iraq; Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham could not risk the shipping losses incurred supplying the garrison during the first siege.
Air Marshal Sir Peter Drummond (deputy to Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder), contended that it might prove impossible to provide fighter cover for the port. Auchinleck drafted orders for Lieutenant-General Neil Ritchie, the commander of the Eighth Army, that he was to make every effort to prevent Tobruk from being taken but he was not to allow his forces to be surrounded there. If the fall of Tobruk was imminent, "the place should be evacuated and the maximum amount of destruction carried out in it", while a firm defence line should be established further east on the Egyptian border. This withdrawal arrangement was formalised as Operation Freeborn.
By 14 June, Operation Venice had forced Ritchie to implement Operation Freeborn, the withdrawal of the 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division and the 1st South African Infantry Division from the Gazala line, eastwards through Tobruk and on towards the Egyptian border. On the previous day, Auchinleck had confirmed to Ritchie that, if all else failed, the frontier should be "a rallying point". Auchinleck began to reassess the Tobruk position; neither he nor Ritchie wanted to lose the considerable stocks of fuel, munitions and other stores which had been built up at the port for Operation Acrobat. On the morning of 14 June, he had received a message from Winston Churchill that "retreat would be fatal"; despite the misgivings of his senior commanders, Churchill had apparently told Roosevelt that he would hold Tobruk.
Auchinleck signalled to Ritchie that he was to hold a line from Acroma (west of Tobruk) extending south-east to El Adem, which would screen Tobruk. Ritchie did not receive the order until two hours before his carefully organised night withdrawal was due to start; too late to alter the manoeuvre. The 50th (Northumbrian) and 1st South African divisions were saved from encirclement but were withdrawn beyond the line which Auchinleck intended them to hold. Ritchie informed Auchinleck that he would attempt to hold the Acroma–El Adem line with troops from XXX Corps but warned that if this failed, Tobruk might either become "temporarily isolated" or be evacuated and asked which option was to be taken. Auchinleck replied that "On no account will any part of the Eighth Army be allowed to be surrounded in Tobruk and invested there", which Ritchie interpreted as meaning that he should evacuate Tobruk if there were an Axis breakthrough. On the morning of 15 June, the situation was confused further by a message from Churchill which included the phrase "Presume there is no question in any case of giving up Tobruk?" Auchinleck replied to Churchill that Ritchie had sufficient troops to hold Tobruk. Auchinleck then signalled to Ritchie that although Tobruk was "not to be invested", it could be "isolated for short periods" and that he should organise a garrison accordingly. It was clear to Ritchie that the collapse of the Acroma–El Adem line was imminent.
Tobruk isolated
The area around El Adem was held by 29th Indian Infantry Brigade (Brigadier Denys Reid). On 15 June, the 90th Light Division attacked El Adem three times by but was repulsed by the defenders. Simultaneously, an attack by the 21st Panzer Division on Point B 650, about 5.0 mi (8 km) north of El Adem was defeated by the Indians and the 7th Motor Brigade; a second attack succeeded later that evening. The attacks on El Adem were stopped after further reverses but the threat of being surrounded caused its evacuation on the night of 16/17 June. This left RAF Gambut on the coast vulnerable, causing the Desert Air Force (DAF) to withdraw eastwards, severely limiting air support. The last outpost of the defensive line was Belhamed, a hill adjacent to Sidi Rezegh, which was held by the 20th Indian Infantry Brigade, a new formation.
On 17 June, the 4th Armoured Brigade was ordered to attack, hoping to take the flank of the German armour, now supplemented by 15th Panzer Division, as it moved northwards towards the coast. The brigade had been hurriedly reformed after the Gazala battles and had about ninety tanks in composite units but lacked much of its artillery, which had been detached to form harassing columns. After an engagement lasting most of the afternoon, the British brigade withdrew to refit and then towards Egypt, having lost 32 tanks. The 20th Indian Brigade was ordered to withdraw during that night but were caught as the German armour reached the coast at Gambut and two of its battalions were captured. Also captured was the abandoned RAF base with 15 aircraft and considerable fuel supplies; to the west, a vast Allied stores dump with thousands of lorries was taken. The next morning, 18 June, Rommel was able to report to Berlin that Tobruk had been surrounded and was under siege.
Opposing forces
Tobruk garrison
The Tobruk garrison was numerically large at about 33,000 men but this number included around 8,000 support troops and around 2,000 non-combatant labourers. A third of the garrison comprised the 2nd South African Infantry Division (Major General Hendrik Klopper, who was put in charge of the defence of Tobruk on 15 June). The division was a brigade short, consisting of the 4th South African Infantry Brigade and 6th South African Infantry Brigade and attached units. The 2nd South African Division was not a veteran formation but it had captured Bardia and Sollum during Operation Crusader in January and had been based in Tobruk since the end of March. Klopper had been a staff officer of the division and had taken over from Major-General I. P. de Villiers on 14 May.
The British 32nd Army Tank Brigade (Brigadier Arthur Willison) had three squadrons of the 4th Royal Tank Regiment (4th RTR) with 35 operational Valentine tanks, two squadrons of the 7th RTR with parts of the 8th RTR and 42nd RTR, with 26 serviceable Valentines and Matildas. The 201st Guards Motor Brigade had the 3rd Coldstream Guards, up to establishment and with ten 6-pounder anti-tank guns, the 1st Battalion, Sherwood Foresters, nearly at full strength with four 6-pounders and 500 men of the 1st Battalion, Worcestershire Regiment, which had been mauled at Point 187 on 14 June. The 11th Indian Infantry Brigade had the experienced 2nd Battalion, Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders, 2/5th Mahratta Light Infantry with many young replacements and the inexperienced 2/7th Gurkha Rifles, an understrength anti-tank company and Beergroup (Lieutenant-Colonel John de Beer), a composite infantry battalion from the 1st South African Division.
The garrison included the field artillery of the 2nd and 3rd South African Field Regiments and the 25th Field Regiment RA, the 67th and 68th Medium Regiments RA, each with eight 4.5-inch guns and eight 155 mm M1918 howitzers. The 6th South African Anti-Tank Battery and A Battery, 95th Anti-Tank Regiment RA were both understrength with fifteen new 6-pounder anti-tank guns, 32 of the older and less effective 2-pounders and eight Bofors 37 mm anti-tank guns. There were eighteen 3.7-inch heavy anti-aircraft guns of the 4th Anti-Aircraft Brigade RA (eighteen had been withdrawn to the frontier on 16 June) and the light guns of the 2nd South African Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment. Many non-essential troops had been evacuated, there remained a number of administrative units of the HQ 88th Sub-Area ( Brigadier Leslie Thompson) including ten transport companies and a Naval Establishment (Captain P. N. Walter RN). The fighter aircraft of 40 Squadron (SAAF) had been withdrawn from the airfield within the perimeter but a Air Support Tentacle remained. The squadrons of the Desert Air Force had moved back to airfields at Sidi Barrani, which put Tobruk beyond the range of their fighters except for the Curtiss Kittyhawks of 250 Squadron RAF, which had drop tanks.