Battle of Gazala
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| Battle of Gazala | |||||||
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| Part of World War II, North African Campaign | |||||||
 The Western Desert around the time of the Gazala battles. |
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| Combatants | |||||||
| Germany Italy |
United Kingdom; South Africa; Free France; Free Polish forces | ||||||
| Commanders | |||||||
| Erwin Rommel | Claude Auchinleck Neil Ritchie |
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| Strength | |||||||
| 80,000 390 tanks |
175,000 949 tanks |
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| Casualties | |||||||
| 32,000 dead, wounded, or captured 114 tanks destroyed |
98,000 dead, wounded, or captured 540 tanks destroyed |
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| Western Desert Campaign |
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| Compass – Sonnenblume – Tobruk – Brevity – Battleaxe – Crusader – Gazala – Bir Hakeim – 1st Alamein – Alam Halfa – Agreement – 2nd Alamein |
The Battle of Gazala was an important battle of the World War II Western Desert Campaign, fought around the port of Tobruk in Libya from May 26 to June 21, 1942. The combatants on the Axis side were the Panzer Army Afrika, consisting of German and Italian units and commanded by the "Desert Fox" Colonel-General Erwin Rommel; the Allied forces were the Eighth Army, commanded by Major General Neil Ritchie under the close supervision of the Commander-in-Chief Middle East, General Sir Claude Auchinleck.
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[edit] Prelude
Following Rommel's attack in January 1942, the Allies had retreated across Libya to a strong position on a line between the fortified port of Tobruk on the Mediterranean coast and the town of Bir Hakeim to the south.
[edit] Battle
On May 27 Rommel personally led elements of Panzer Army Afrika – the Afrika Korps, the Italian XX Motorized Corps, and the German 90th Light Afrika Division – in a brilliant but risky flank around the southern end of the Allied lines, trusting to the enemy's own minefields to protect his flank and rear. The Italian X Corps pinned the Allied troops down with a frontal attack on the Allied front line, and the Italian 101st Motorized Division Trieste attacked the fortified "box" at Bir Hakeim from the west while the Italian 132nd Armoured Division Ariete, on the left flank of Rommel's sweep, attempted to seize it from the rear. The box, defended by the 1st Free French Brigade under Marie-Pierre Koenig, proved to be a bigger problem than Rommel had anticipated, and Panzer Army Afrika found itself trapped in a region known as "the Cauldron", with Bir Hakeim to the south, Tobruk to the north, and the extensive mine belts of the original Allied front line to the west, and assailed by Allied armour from the east.
Rommel solved the problem presented by the situation by means of several methodical steps, first attacking westward back toward his own original front line in order to restore a route of supply. In this western attack he had to destroy the British 150th Infantry Brigade box in order to break through to his lines. He then weathered a somewhat late and uncoordinated Allied counterattack, dispatched strong forces southward to clear the Free French out of Bir Hakeim, and then resumed his eastward advance with his armour once more sweeping around the remaining positions in a repeat of his initial moves several days earlier. Though he drove the Allies off the field, Free French resistance as well as exhaustion and an insufficiency of troops meant that he failed to run down several retiring Allied divisions.
[edit] Aftermath
On 14 June Auchinleck retreated east to a strong position on the Alamein Line on the border of Egypt, leaving the 2nd South African Division to defend an isolated Tobruk much as Wavell had done in April 1941. Since Tobruk had previously withstood a siege of nine months before being relieved by Operation Crusader in December 1941, the Allies expected it to do so again.
However, just seven days later, on 21 June 1942, 35,000 Allied troops (including the entire South African 2nd Division, were surrendered to Navarrini's 30,000 troops. (An echo of the surrender of 50,000 Commonwealth troops to three Japanese divisions following the fall of Singapore, a few months earlier.)
The defeat at Gazala and Tobruk's surrender led to the dismissal of Ritchie, and later Auchinleck, and their replacement by Montgomery and Alexander respectively.
After capturing Tobruk Panzer Army Afrika advanced into Egypt and attacked the Alamein Line on 1 July 1942 in the First Battle of El Alamein.
[edit] Orders of battle
[edit] Allied
- Eighth Army (Auchinleck)
- British XIII Corps (Gott)
- South African 1st Division
- South African 2nd Division (in Tobruk)
- British 50th Infantry Division
- British 1st Army Tank Brigade
- British 32nd Army Tank Brigade
- Indian 9th Brigade (in Tobruk, less one battalion in the El Adem Box)
- Polish Independent Carpathian Brigade (Tobruk-Bardia-El Mekili-Carmuset er Regem)
- British XXX Corps (Norrie)
- British 1st Armoured Division
- British 2nd Armoured Brigade
- British 22nd Armoured Brigade
- British 201st Guards Brigade (in Knightsbridge Box)
- British 7th Armoured Division
- British 4th Armoured Brigade
- British 7th Motorized Brigade
- 1st Free French Brigade (in Bir Hacheim Box)
- British 7th Motorized Brigade (in Retma Box, plus some deployed as a reconnaissance screen west of Bir Hacheim)
- Indian 3rd Brigade (in process of establishing a box southeast of Bir Hacheim)
- Indian 29th Brigade (at Bir el Gubi)
- British 1st Armoured Division
- British XIII Corps (Gott)
[edit] Axis
- Panzer Army Afrika (Rommel)
- Deutsches Afrika Korps (Nehring)
- Italian XX Motorized Corps
- Italian 132nd Armoured Division Ariete
- Italian 101st Motorized Division Trieste
- German 90th Light Afrika Division (less a rifle brigade attached to Group Crüwell)
- Group Crüwell (Crüwell)1
- Italian X Corps
- Italian 60th Infantry Division Sabratha
- Italian 102nd Motorized Division Trento
- Italian XXI Corps
- Italian 17th Infantry Division Pavia
- Italian 27th Infantry Division Brescia
- German 150th Rifle Brigade (detached from 90th Light)
- Italian X Corps
Note 1: Strictly speaking Group Crüwell was part of Panzer Army Afrika, but as a practical matter Rommel temporarily split his Army in half, with Crüwell commanding the infantry units along the original front line while Rommel joined the mechanized forces in the flanking move.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- von Mellenthin, Friedrich (1956). Panzer Battles: A Study of the Employment of Armor in the Second World War, First Ballantine Books Edition, 1971, New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-24440-0.
