Siege of Tobruk

The Siege of Tobruk was the Axis encirclement of Allied forces dug in and around the port of Tobruk in Libya that lasted for 253 days in North Africa during the North African Campaign in the Second World War. The siege started on 10 April 1941, when Tobruk was attacked by an Italo–German force under Lieutenant-General Erwin Rommel, and continued for 253 days to 10 December 1941, when it was finally lifted when Major-General Stanisław Kopański's Carpathian Brigade attacked and captured White Knoll Hill during Operation Crusader.

Benghazi handicap

During March 1941, Rommel defied orders from Rome to hold his ground around Tripoli and build up his strength. He attacked in what became known as the "Benghazi handicap", taking advantage of the British Middle East Command decision to reinforce northern Greece, pushing the British Commonwealth forces back to the east, towards Tobruk. He won control of the air with the Regia Aeronautica fighters and 20 Messerschmitt Bf 110s from ZG26 based at Sirte, and he had over 1,000 trucks.

On 31 March he launched fifty tanks backed up by the Brescia Infantry and Ariete Armoured Divisions and drove the Allies back in confusion. The British 7th Armoured and Australian 6th Infantry Divisions had been replaced by the inexperienced 2nd Armoured and 9th Infantry Divisions. The withdrawal cost the Australians heavily, with 1,000 men captured after the 8th Bersaglieri Regiment surrounded and captured Mechili.

At the start of Rommel's first desert offensive, he had at his disposal 130 panzers, over one-hundred German 88-mm Flak guns and 9,300 well-trained officers and other ranks from the Afrika Korps.

In the first three months of 1941, 184 Allied aircraft were lost in North Africa, with No. 208 Squadron sent to defend Greece in late February. On 18 February, a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) formation attacked 12 Ju 87s from StG3, with Flight Lieutenant Steege and Flying Officer Jaskson each shooting down three German dive-bombers. The next day, the Australians lost two Hurricanes in a doghfight with the Bf 110s.

When Axis aircraft began bombing Benghazi, the Royal Navy withdrew, thus weakening the Allied supply line and ability to counter the Axis offensive. The Axis vanguards pushed on very quickly round Tobruk and towards Bardia and Sollum, with armoured cars and motorcycle troops. Benghazi fell on 3 April and by 11 April the British Commonwealth forces had retreated all the way to Egypt, leaving Tobruk isolated and under siege. Tobruk was bombed and strafed daily and its airfields were shelled by captured French heavy artillery guns in Italian service. On 5 April, British and Australian pilots shot down fourteen dive-bombers.

General Morshead was appointed commander of The Tobruk garrison. He counted on the Italian concrete strongpoints and set about improving them. He established a series of posts, called the Red Line, around the garrison's 50km outer perimeter, concentrating his infantry behind a barbed-wire inner defence line. On 11 April, the anti-aircraft gunners at Tobruk shot down three Stuka dive-bombers.

Easter Battle

On 10 April, under pressure from Rommel, the 15 Panzer Division's commander, Major-General Heinrich von Prittwitz was killed along with his driver by an anti-tank shot, while conducting a reconnaissance near Tobruk. Upon finding out the loss, the commander of the 5th Light Division, Major-General Johannes Streich drove up angrily in a commandeered British vehicle to chastise Rommel, only to be warned that he could also have been killed in a case of mistaken identity by 20mm fire, to which Streich responded that in that case Rommel would've killed two German generals in just one day.

On 11 April, the 5th Panzer Regiment probed the Australian defences around stongpoints R59 and R63, losing five panzers in the process. Nevertheless, 700 supporting infantry got within 400 yards of the 2/13th Battalion's positions. Axis infantry also attacked the 2/17th Battalion's sector near strongpoint R33. Artillery fire stopped the attacking infantry, but 70 tanks got through and attempted to overrun Captain Baffe's D Company as the company commander recalls:

"About 70 tanks came right up to the antitank ditch and opened fire on our forward posts. They advanced in three waves of about twenty and one of ten. Some of them were big German Mark IVs, mounting a 75-mm gun. Others were Italian M13s and there were a lot of Italian light tanks too. The ditch here wasn't any real obstacle to them, the minefield had only been hastily rearmed and we hadn't one antitank gun foward. We fired on them with antitank rifles, Brens, and rifles and they didn't attempt to come through, but blazed away at us and then sheered off east towards the 2/13th's front."

German infantry attacked again, in battalion strength as Baffe recalls:

"When the infantry were about 500 yards out we opened up, but in the posts that could reach them we had only two Brens, two antitank rifles and a couple of dozen ordinary rifles. The Jerries went to ground at first, but gradually moved forward in bounds under cover of their machine guns. It was nearly dusk by this time, and they managed to reach the antitank ditch. From there they mortared near-by posts heavily. We hadn't any mortars with which to reply, and our artillery couldn't shell the ditch without risk of hitting our own posts."

At the El Adem road, Axis tanks clashed with reinforcements from the 1st Royal Tank Regiment, and four Italian tanks and one German panzer were lost. Two British tanks were also lost, but the British forced the Axis force to withdraw. The 2/13th Battalion's mortar platoon, equipped with two Italian 47mm antitank guns, also knocked out two Italian tanks in the El Adem road action.

That night, Axis tanks along with pioneers again probed the Australian defences, but were driven off by the 2/17th Battalion.

On 13 April, German aircraft dropped leaftlets over Tobruk, urging the Australian garrison to surrender:

"The general officer commanding the German forces in Libya hereby requests that the British troops occupying Tobruk surrender their arms. Single soldiers waving white handkerchiefs are not fired on. Strong German forces have already surrounded Tobrk, and it it useless to try and escape. Remember Mekili. Our dive-bombers and Stukas are awaiting your ships which are lying in Tobruk."

That night, a strong German night-fighting patrol attempted to captured strongpoint R33, but the attack failed when Lieutenant-Colonel Mackell personally led a counterattackalong with six of his men. The Australians claim 12 Germans were killed and one captured, and Corporal Jack Edmondson was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for his part in the action.

On 14 April, seventy Ju 87s escorted by German and Italian fighters attacked Tobruk. No.73 Squadron intercepted the formation and Flight Lieutenant James Duncan Smith, a Canadian fighter ace, shot down two G.50s before the Italian fighters from 351º Squadriglia shot him down, killing him in the process. Sergeant R. W. Ellis, who had shot down four Luftwaffe aircraft during the Battle of Britain shot down three German dive-bombers in the aerial battle.

Battle of the Salient

At about 20:00, tanks moved up to the perimeter wire in front of S.1 and, using grappling hooks, pulled it away. Tanks from the 5th Panzer Company and supporting infantry from the German 2nd Machine-Gun Battalion and a Pioneer Battalion proceeded to clear up the bunkers manned by Captain Fell's A Company, 2/24th Battalion. Strongpoint S1 was the first to be captured. Two panzers drove to within 100–200 yd (91–183 m) of the post, and opened fire, and, after a brief fight (in which three men were killed and four wounded), Lieutenant Walker and his men surrendered. These tanks then proceeded to attack S.2 (Major Fell), which contained the Company HQ and 7th Platoon. Getting to within 200 yards, the panzers opened fire, shredding sandbags on the parapets and blowing up sangars. On each tank were riding German infantrymen, who under cover of the tanks' fire, ran forwards with grenades. S.2 then surrendered

Then came the turn of 9th Platoon's dug-in along strongpoints R.0 and R.1. After a fight in which three were killed and four wounded, the defenders surrendered. The crews of two Royal Horse Artillery 2-pounders put up a fight, knocking out some of the panzers, but when the guns tried to turn to engage tanks moving to their flank, they exposed themselves to German machine-gunners, with the gunners either killed or wounded. The bunkered platoons from the neighbouring C Company, 2/24th Battalion were also attacked. Strongpoint S.5 was captured at first light on 1 May, but strongpoint S.4 (Corporal Rod Deering) and S.6 (Captain Lin Canty) held out grimly until the morning. Strongpoint S.7 (Corporal Thomson) stubbornly resisted, inflicting heavy casualties on the attacking Italians, before the attackers were able to throw in grenades. Attacks by Italian infantry, on strongpoints S.8, S.9 and S.10 were repelled. Nevertheless, C Company suffered 20 men killed and wounded, and another 44 taken prisoner in the fighting in the northern sector that largely involved troops from the Brescia Infantry Division.

The attack in the southern sector also involved Italian troops and Lieutenant John Mair's 16th Platoon, D Company, defending strongpoints R.2 and R.3 and R.4 were overrun by the Italians. According to an Australian defender, "That night the slightest move would bring a flare over our position and the area would be lit like day. We passed a night of merry hell as the pounding went on." Italian infantry were then able to close in, and grenades were thrown into the bunkers. Nevertheless, strongpoints R.5 (Sergeant Gordon Poidevin), R.6 (Captain Arthur Bird) and R.7 (Corporal K. S. Jones) were taken only after stubborn resistance, and fought on until they had run out of ammunition or had grenades tossed into the firing pits. After they had been taken prisoner, General Rommel spoke to them "for you the war is over and I wish you good luck", recalled Corporal Jones

The British 51st Field Regiment had been constantly firing, causing an entire German battalion to scatter and, according to Rommel, creating panic in the Italian infantry. Seven British Cruiser and five Matilda tanks also appeared in the Italian area of penetration, engaging in an inconclusive battle with Italian tanks.

The Axis attack faltered when the leading tanks ran into a minefield placed by General Morshead to stop any breaches of the Blue Line. A German officer recalled: "Two companies get off their motor lorries and extend in battle order. All sorts of light signals go up — green, white, red. The flares hiss down near our own MGs. It is already too late to take aim. Well, the attack is a failure. The little Fiat-Ansaldos go up in front with flame-throwers in order to clean up the triangle. Long streaks of flame, thick smoke, filthy stink. We provide cover until 2345 hours, then retire through the gap. It is a mad drive through the dust. At 0300 hours have snack beside tank. 24 hours shut up in the tank, with frightful cramp as a result — and thirsty!" After several tanks lost their tracks, the remaining Panzers retreated and the Australians could claim a victory.

Nevertheless, Rommel's troops had captured fifteen strongpoints on an arc of 5.6 kilometres of the perimeter, including its highest fort. But the Australians had largely contained this Italo-German thrust. One German POW said: "I cannot understand you Australians. In Poland, France, and Belgium, once the tanks got through the soldiers took it for granted that they were beaten. But you are like demons. The tanks break through and your infantry still keep fighting." Rommel wrote of seeing "a batch of some fifty or sixty Australian prisoners [mainly C Company, 2/24th Battalion that had surrendered to the Italians]... marched off close behind us — immensely big and powerful men, who without question represented an elite formation of the British Empire, a fact that was also evident in battle."

Nevertheless, Australian losses had been heavy. The Australian casualties were 59 killed, 335 wounded and 383 captured.

The Siege

The besieging units would be mainly Italians, belonging to the Ariete and Trieste Diviisons (20th Motorised Corps) and Pavia, Bologna, and Brescia Divisions (21st Infantry Corps). The Australian commanders remain determined to recapture the ground lost. On 3 May, the Australians launch a counterattack employing the 18th Brigade but are only able to recapture one strongpoint from what Australian historians admit to be held by the Italians. On the night of 16–17 May, the Axis besiegers retaliate. With pathways in the Tobruk forward defences cleared, the participating Brescia infantry attack using flame-throwers. The participating German unit under a Major Betz fails in their attack, but two platoons of the 32nd Combat Sappers Battalion come to their rescue, securing the S.8, S.9 and S.10 strongpoints and successfully defend them from Australian counterattacks that includes an attempt to regain R.7 that night.

Major-General Leslie Morshead is furious that another 3 strongpoints have been lost and orders the Australians to be far more vigilant in the future.

Despite the setbacks, the Australians fought hard and the Commanding Officer of the 32nd Combat Sappers—Colonel Emilio Caizzo— is killed in a satchel attack on a machine-gun emplacement, an action which earns him a posthumous Gold Medal for Military Valour. An Italian narrative has recorded:

"On the night on 16 May 1941, two platoons of the 3rd Combat Engineer Company in union with assault groups of the "Brescia" Infantry Division, which had been sent as reinforcements on the 11th of that month, initiated the attack. With total disregard to danger and usual stealthiness, the combat sappers opened three paths in the wire fencing in front of each assault group. They used explosive charges in tubes. Fighting side by side with the assaulters, in fierce hand-to-hand combat, they inflicted heavy losses on the enemy, and obtained the objective."

On 2 August, in the belief that the Axis battalions had largely abandoned the lost strongpoints, an attack was launched by a company of the 2/43rd Battalion and a company of the 2/28th Battalion from Tobruk. The attack is well planned and supported by more than 60 field guns, but the German defenders and supporting Bersaglieri machinegunners are ready, and the Australian attack fails with heavy loss of lives. This would be the last Australian effort to recover the lost strongpoints and criticism was levelled at General Morshead for the failure of the attack.