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The siege of Tobruk (/ t ə ˈ b r ʊ k, t oʊ-/) took place between 10 April and 27 November 1941, during the Western Desert campaign (1940–1943) of the Second World War.An Allied force, consisting mostly of the 9th Australian Division, commanded by Lieutenant-General Leslie Morshead, was besieged in the North African port of Tobruk by German and Italian forces.
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.
Tobruk was the site of an ancient Greek colony and, later, of a Roman fortress guarding the frontier of Cyrenaica. [4] Over the centuries, Tobruk also served as a waystation along the coastal caravan route. [4] By 1911, Tobruk had become an Italian military post.
Battle of Tobruk (1911), an engagement in December 1911 during the Italo-Turkish War; Battle of Tobruk (1941), the capture of Tobruk by the Allies in January 1941; Siege of Tobruk, by the Axis from April to November 1941; Battle of Tobruk (1942), the fall of Tobruk to the Axis in June 1942; 1989 air battle near Tobruk, shootdown of two Libyan ...
Aerial photograph of the port of Tobruk during the 1941 siege. 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 ...
The defenders had adopted Tobruk's excellent network of below-ground defensive positions which had been built pre-war by the Italian Army. The propagandist for Germany, William Joyce, better known as "Lord Haw-Haw", began describing the besieged men as living like rats in underground dug-outs and caves.
Tobruk could only take 20,000 long tons (20,321 t) of supplies a month, was within DAF bomber range and the railway could carry only 300 long tons (305 t) per day. Small deliveries could be made to Tobruk, Bardia and Mersa Matruh or be landed at Tripoli and Benghazi, 1,300 and 800 mi (2,100 and 1,300 km) away.
Then, just as they began to dig in, the battalion was abruptly withdrawn to Tobruk in response to the German Afrika Korps' advance. [10] They entered Tobruk on 9 April 1941, and spent the following eight months besieged by Axis forces. [9]