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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 ...
21 June: Axis capture of Tobruk; 28 June: Mersa Matruh, Egypt, falls to the Axis; 29 June: U.S. reports from Egypt of British military operations stop using the compromised "Black Code" which the Axis were reading; 30 June: Axis forces reach El Alamein and attack the Allied defences, the First Battle of El Alamein begins
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. [ h ] It was the first time during the war that a significant German force fought on the defensive.
By late May, the Axis forces comprised 90,000 men, 560 tanks and 542 aircraft. [13] [14] On 26 May, Comando Supremo ordered Bastico and Rommel to launch the offensive, defeat the British armoured forces and capture Tobruk. [21] [page needed]
Extensive preparations were made for the invasion but the success of other Axis operations – including the Battle of Gazala (26 May to 21 June 1942), the Axis capture of Tobruk on 21 June and Operation Aïda, the pursuit of the Allies into Egypt – led to Herkules being postponed and then cancelled in November 1942.
Operation Agreement was a ground and amphibious operation carried out by British, Rhodesian and New Zealand forces on Axis-held Tobruk from 13 to 14 September 1942, during the Second World War. A Special Interrogation Group party, fluent in German, took part in missions behind enemy lines.
Axis capture of Tobruk, the capture of Tobruk by German and Italian forces over the period 17–21 June 1942 in World War II; HMAS Tobruk, two ships of the Royal Australian Navy; SS Tobruk, a Polish transport ship during World War II; Tobruk, a type of concrete fortification used during World War II; See Defensive fighting position
Meanwhile the rest of the battalion had defended Elvet el Tamar but were withdrawn before it was overrun. 9th Rifle Brigade moved into Tobruk as a mobile reserve in the centre of the defences, but was ordered out to the east before the Axis capture of Tobruk on 21 June. The battalion then operated in columns in the Sidi Rezegh area before ...