Axis capture of Tobruk

Axis capture of Tobruk
Part of the Western Desert campaign of the Second World War
The road from Bardia to Tobruk on 21 June 1942 with British prisoners of war on the left, sunken ships in the harbour and smoke over the port.
Date 17–21 June 1942 Location Tobruk, Libya 32°04′34″N 23°57′41″E / 32.07611°N 23.96139°E / 32.07611; 23.96139 Result German–Italian victory
Belligerents
Germany  Italy	United Kingdom  South Africa
Commanders and leaders
Ettore Bastico Erwin Rommel	Claude Auchinleck Neil Ritchie Hendrik Klopper
Strength
Deutsches Afrika Korps X Corpo d'Armata XXI Corpo d'Armata[1]	35,000 troops
Casualties and losses
c. 3,360[2]	33,000 taken prisoner[2]

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 Lieutenant-General William Gott, the commander of XIII Corps, was withdrawn from Tobruk and on 15 June 1942, five days before the Axis attack.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.^[3] 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; 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.^[4] The findings were kept secret until after the war, which did little to restore the reputation of Klopper or his troops.