Gazala

1. Lead

The Battle of Gazala, fought from 26 May to 21 June 1942, was Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s greatest victory in North Africa, and the worst British defeat in the desert war. In the spring of 1942, the British Eighth Army under Lieutenant General Neil Ritchie held a defensive line west of Tobruk, anchored on the Gazala Line — a chain of fortified “boxes” stretching from the Mediterranean coast south into the desert to the oasis of Bir Hakeim.

Rommel, commanding the Panzerarmee Afrika, attacked on 26 May with a sweeping outflanking move around the southern end of the line, through the desert south of Bir Hakeim, and then turned north to strike the British armour in the area the British called the Cauldron.

For three weeks the two armies fought a confused, swirling battle of tanks, guns and infantry in the desert, and in the end the British line broke. The Eighth Army retreated in disorder — the “Gazala Gallop” — and on 21 June Rommel took Tobruk, capturing some 33,000 prisoners, and drove on into Egypt, to within 100 kilometres of Alexandria.

Gazala was the high-water mark of Rommel’s career, and it brought the British to the edge of disaster in the Middle East.

Gazala is remembered for the brilliance of Rommel’s manoeuvre, for the heroism of the Free French at Bir Hakeim, who held out for two weeks against overwhelming odds, and for the scale of the British defeat — a defeat that cost the Eighth Army some 50,000 men and more than 1,000 tanks, and that led to the fall of Tobruk, the fortress the British had held for eight months in 1941.

The battle is also remembered as a lesson in the desert war: in the open desert, a mobile army that could outflank its enemy would always beat a static army that waited behind its defences, and the British, who had built the Gazala Line to hold Rommel, learned that lesson at a terrible price.

Within weeks of Gazala, the British were fighting for their lives at El Alamein, and the war in North Africa would be decided there.

2. Key Facts

Date	26 May – 21 June 1942 (Gazala 26 May – 13 June; Tobruk 20–21 June) / 26/5 – 21/6/1942 (Gazala 26/5 – 13/6; Tobruk 20–21/6)
Location	Gazala Line, west of Tobruk, Libya — from the Mediterranean coast south to Bir Hakeim
Result	Axis victory; Eighth Army driven back, Tobruk captured 21 June, Axis advance into Egypt
Allied commanders	Lt. Gen. Neil Ritchie (Eighth Army); Maj. Gen. Frank Messervy (7th Armoured Division); Brig. Gen. Marie-Pierre Koenig (1st Free French Brigade, Bir Hakeim)
Axis commanders	Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (Panzerarmee Afrika); Gen. Ludwig Crüwell (Deutsches Afrikakorps); Gen. Ettore Bastico (Italian forces)
Allied strength	Eighth Army: about 100,000 men, about 850 tanks (incl. American Grant tanks)
Axis strength	Panzerarmee Afrika: about 90,000 men (German and Italian), about 560 tanks
Allied losses	About 50,000 casualties in the Gazala–Tobruk fighting (killed, wounded and captured, incl. 33,000 at Tobruk); more than 1,000 tanks lost (estimates vary)
Axis losses	About 10,000 casualties (estimates vary); heavy tank losses, later made good

3. Background

The Desert War in 1942

The Battle of Gazala was fought in the desert war of North Africa, a war that had swung back and forth across Libya since 1940. The British had driven the Italians out of Egypt in 1940, the Germans had arrived under Rommel in 1941 and driven the British back to Tobruk, and the British had relieved Tobruk in Operation Crusader in late 1941 and driven Rommel back to El Agheila.

In early 1942, Rommel struck back, retaking Benghazi and advancing to the Gazala Line, west of Tobruk, where the British had dug in. The front had settled into a stalemate in the spring of 1942, and both sides were preparing for the next move.

The British, under General Claude Auchinleck, the commander-in-chief in the Middle East, planned to attack first, in June, once their new American Grant tanks had arrived and their forces were ready. Rommel, who knew the British were preparing to attack, decided to attack first, on 26 May, before the British were ready. The race to attack first was won by Rommel, and the battle that followed was his.

The Gazala Line

The British defensive position, the Gazala Line, was a chain of fortified “boxes” — strongpoints held by infantry brigades, surrounded by minefields and wire — stretching about 60 kilometres from the Mediterranean coast south into the desert to the oasis of Bir Hakeim.

The boxes were held by the 1st South African Division in the north, the 50th Northumbrian Division in the centre, and the 1st Free French Brigade at Bir Hakeim in the south, with the British armour — the 7th Armoured Division and the 1st and 32nd Army Tank Brigades — held in reserve behind the line.

The line was strong in the north, where it was anchored on the coast, but it was weak in the south, where it ended in the open desert at Bir Hakeim. The British plan was to hold the line and to use their armour to counterattack any German force that broke through.

But the plan depended on the armour being used as a single force, under a single commander, and on the boxes holding long enough for the armour to strike. Neither condition was met: the British armour was divided, its command was confused, and the boxes were taken one by one.

Rommel’s Plan

Rommel’s plan for Gazala was a classic outflanking manoeuvre, and it was a gamble. He would hold the British line in the north with his Italian infantry, while his mobile forces — the Deutsches Afrikakorps, under General Ludwig Crüwell, and the Italian XX Motorised Corps — swept south around Bir Hakeim, through the open desert, and then turned north to strike the British armour from behind.

The plan depended on speed and on surprise: the German and Italian mobile columns had to cover more than 100 kilometres of desert in a single day, and they had to do it with enough fuel and water to fight at the end of it. Rommel’s supply lines were stretched, his fuel was short, and his tanks were fewer than the British.

But he had something the British did not: a clear plan, a single commander, and an army that trusted him. The British, by contrast, had more men and more tanks, but their command was divided, their plan was defensive, and their general, Ritchie, was a staff officer who had never commanded an army in battle.

The Free French at Bir Hakeim

The southern end of the Gazala Line was held by the 1st Free French Brigade under Brigadier General Marie-Pierre Koenig, a force of about 3,700 men — French, Foreign Legionaries and colonial troops — who had been given the task of holding the oasis of Bir Hakeim.

Bir Hakeim was a cluster of ruined buildings and wells in the desert, surrounded by a minefield, and it was the key to the whole line: if it fell, the Germans could outflank the line, and if it held, the Germans would have to go around it, losing time and fuel.

Koenig’s men knew the importance of their position, and they had prepared it well: they had dug trenches, laid mines and registered their artillery, and they were determined to hold. The stand of the Free French at Bir Hakeim, which lasted from 26 May to 11 June, became one of the most famous actions of the desert war, and it is remembered in France to this day as a symbol of the Free French contribution to the war.

4. Opposing Forces

The British Eighth Army

The British Eighth Army under Lieutenant General Neil Ritchie numbered about 100,000 men and about 850 tanks, and on paper it was stronger than Rommel’s force. Its infantry divisions — the 1st South African, the 50th Northumbrian, the 2nd South African and the 1st Free French Brigade — held the Gazala Line, and its armour — the 7th Armoured Division under Major General Frank Messervy, the 1st Armoured Division and the army tank brigades — was held in reserve behind the line.

The British tanks included the new American Grant, a tank with a 75 mm gun in a sponson that outranged the German tanks, and the Crusader and the Valentine, which were fast but lightly armed. The British advantage in numbers was real, but it was wasted: the armour was divided between two commanders, the infantry and the armour did not cooperate, and Ritchie, who had been appointed to command the army only a few months before, did not have the authority or the experience to impose his will on his subordinates.

The Eighth Army of May 1942 was a powerful army that did not know how to use its power.

The Panzerarmee Afrika / Panzerarmee Afrika

Rommel’s Panzerarmee Afrika numbered about 90,000 men — German and Italian — and about 560 tanks, and it was, on paper, the weaker force. Its German core was the Deutsches Afrikakorps, under General Ludwig Crüwell, with the 15th and 21st Panzer Divisions and the 90th Light Division, and the Italian XX Motorised Corps, with the Ariete and Trieste Divisions.

Its Italian infantry — the X and XXI Corps — held the line in the north, facing the British. The German tanks were the Panzer III and Panzer IV, which were outnumbered and outgunned by the British Grant, but the Germans had the 88 mm anti-aircraft gun, which they used as an anti-tank gun, and it could destroy any British tank at long range.

The German advantage was not in numbers or in equipment, but in leadership and in doctrine: Rommel commanded his army as a single force, his divisions cooperated, and his officers understood the mobile battle in a way the British did not. The Panzerarmee Afrika of May 1942 was a smaller army that knew exactly what it was doing.

Tanks and Guns in the Desert

The desert war was a war of tanks and guns, and the battle of Gazala showed both at their best and their worst. The British Grant tank, with its 75 mm gun, was the best tank on the battlefield, but it was used badly: the British armour attacked in separate brigades, without infantry support, and was picked off by the German 88 mm guns, which were sited behind the German tanks and fired over open sights.

The German tanks, for their part, were used as Rommel directed: they advanced in mass, with the 88s behind them, and they drew the British armour onto the guns. The battle of the Cauldron, in early June, was a battle of tanks in the open desert, and it was decided by the guns: the British lost hundreds of tanks to the 88s, and the Germans, though they lost tanks too, lost fewer.

The lesson of Gazala, for the British, was that tanks alone do not win battles — they need guns, infantry and a plan, and at Gazala the British had the tanks but not the rest.

	Allies	Axis
Infantry	1st South African, 50th Northumbrian, 2nd South African Divisions; 1st Free French Brigade at Bir Hakeim	Italian X and XXI Corps (north); German 90th Light Division
Armour	7th Armoured Division; 1st Armoured Division; 1st and 32nd Army Tank Brigades; about 850 tanks incl. Grant, Crusader, Valentine	15th and 21st Panzer Divisions; Italian Ariete and Trieste Divisions; about 560 tanks
Anti-tank guns	2-pounder and 6-pounder guns; outranged by the German 88 mm	88 mm anti-aircraft guns used as anti-tank guns
Air support	Desert Air Force: fighters and bombers, but outnumbered over the battlefield	Luftwaffe and Regia Aeronautica: air superiority over Gazala in June
Command	Ritchie (Eighth Army); Messervy (7th Armoured); Koenig (Bir Hakeim)	Rommel (Panzerarmee Afrika); Crüwell (Afrikakorps); Bastico (Italian forces)

5. The Battle

26–27 May: Rommel’s Outflanking Move

Rommel attacked on the afternoon of 26 May 1942. While his Italian infantry demonstrated against the British line in the north, his mobile forces — the Afrikakorps and the Italian XX Corps — swept south around Bir Hakeim, through the open desert, and by the morning of 27 May they had turned north and were advancing on the British rear.

The move was a triumph of desert navigation and of speed: the columns covered more than 100 kilometres in a day, and they arrived behind the British line before the British knew they were coming. But the move also went wrong: the German columns ran into the British armour, which was waiting behind the line, and the fighting on 27 May was confused and costly.

The British 7th Armoured Division, caught by surprise, lost heavily, but the German columns were also delayed, and by nightfall on 27 May Rommel’s force was in a dangerous position: it was behind the British line, but it was short of fuel and water, and its supply lines ran through the desert south of Bir Hakeim, past the Free French position that was still holding out.

28 May – 1 June: The Cauldron

The days that followed were the battle of the Cauldron, the confused tank battle that gave the Gazala campaign its character. Rommel’s force, short of supplies, was caught between the British armour in the north and the British boxes in the south, in an area the British called the Cauldron — a depression in the desert, ringed by minefields, where the two armies fought for days.

The British armour attacked the German columns again and again, but it attacked in separate brigades, without coordination, and the German 88 mm guns destroyed tank after tank. On 1 June, the Germans overran the 150th Brigade box, which had been holding the southern end of the British minefields, and the supply route to Rommel’s force was opened.

The Cauldron battle had cost the British hundreds of tanks, and it had cost the Germans heavily too, but Rommel had survived the most dangerous moment of the campaign: his force was supplied again, and it was free to attack.

Bir Hakeim Holds

While the tank battle raged in the Cauldron, the Free French at Bir Hakeim were fighting their own battle. From 26 May, Koenig’s brigade was attacked by German and Italian forces, and for two weeks it held out, though it was surrounded, outnumbered and under constant artillery fire and air attack.

The Free French fought with a determination that surprised the Germans: they repelled attack after attack, and their artillery, though short of ammunition, fired on every German column that came within range. Bir Hakeim held until 11 June, when Koenig, his ammunition exhausted and his position untenable, ordered a breakout under cover of darkness.

The brigade broke out through the German lines, losing about 1,000 men, and reached the British lines. The stand at Bir Hakeim had delayed Rommel’s advance by two weeks, and it had cost the Germans time and men they could not afford. It was, in the words of one British officer, “the finest feat of arms in the desert war”.

5–13 June: The British Line Breaks

After the fall of the 150th Brigade box and the breakout from Bir Hakeim, Rommel turned his full strength against the British line. On 5 June, the British launched a counterattack, Operation Aberdeen, aimed at destroying Rommel’s force in the Cauldron, but the attack was badly coordinated, the British armour and infantry did not cooperate, and the attack failed with heavy losses.

On 11 June, Bir Hakeim fell, and on 12–13 June Rommel struck the British armour in the Cauldron with his full strength. The battle of 12–13 June — known to the British as “Black Saturday” — destroyed the British armour: the 7th Armoured Division and the army tank brigades lost hundreds of tanks, and the British line broke.

Ritchie ordered a retreat on 13 June, and the Eighth Army fell back in disorder towards Tobruk and the Egyptian frontier. The retreat became known as the “Gazala Gallop”, and it was a rout: units were mixed together, supplies were abandoned, and the army that retreated was a shadow of the army that had held the Gazala Line.

20–21 June: The Fall of Tobruk

Rommel did not stop at Gazala. He pursued the retreating British to Tobruk, the fortress port that the British had held for eight months in 1941 and that they believed to be impregnable. Tobruk in June 1942 was not the Tobruk of 1941: its defences had been weakened, its garrison — the 2nd South African Division and other units, about 33,000 men under Major General Hendrik Klopper — was not prepared for a siege, and its commander had been ordered to hold the fortress at all costs.

Rommel attacked on 20 June, with a concentrated assault by the Afrikakorps and the Italian XX Corps, supported by dive-bombers, and the defences were breached within hours. On 21 June, Tobruk surrendered, and some 33,000 men — British, South African, Indian and other Commonwealth troops — were taken prisoner.

The fall of Tobruk was a shock to the British: the fortress that had been the symbol of British resistance in the desert had fallen in a day, and the road to Egypt lay open. Rommel, promoted to field marshal on the day of the victory, drove on into Egypt, to El Alamein.

6. Turning Point

The Fall of the 150th Brigade Box

The turning point of the Battle of Gazala was the fall of the 150th Brigade box on 1 June 1942. The box, held by a brigade of the 50th Northumbrian Division, guarded the southern end of the British minefields and the supply route to Rommel’s force in the Cauldron.

As long as the box held, Rommel’s force was cut off from its supplies, and the German columns in the Cauldron were running out of fuel, water and ammunition. On 1 June, the Germans overran the box, and the supply route was opened. The fall of the box changed the battle: Rommel’s force, which had been on the verge of disaster, was supplied again, and it was free to attack.

The British, who had been on the verge of victory, had lost it. The box was a small position, held by a single brigade, but its fall decided the battle — and it is a reminder that in war, a small position can matter more than a whole army.

Black Saturday

The second turning point was the battle of 12–13 June, “Black Saturday”, in which Rommel destroyed the British armour in the Cauldron. The British armour, which had been the Eighth Army’s striking force, was committed to battle in separate brigades, without infantry support, and it was destroyed by the German 88 mm guns and by the German tanks.

The loss of the armour broke the British line: without its tanks, the Eighth Army could not counterattack, and it could not hold the Gazala Line. Ritchie ordered the retreat on 13 June, and the battle was over. Black Saturday was the day the British lost the desert war’s initiative, and they would not regain it until El Alamein, four months later.

The battle is remembered in the British army as a lesson in the use of armour — a lesson written in the wreckage of hundreds of tanks in the Cauldron.

7. Casualties and Losses

The Cost

The casualty figures for the Battle of Gazala are approximate, and the British and Axis figures are of different kinds. British losses in the Gazala–Tobruk fighting, from 26 May to 21 June 1942, are usually put at about 50,000 men killed, wounded and captured, including some 33,000 men taken prisoner at Tobruk on 21 June.

The British also lost more than 1,000 tanks in the fighting, a figure that includes the tanks destroyed in the Cauldron, the tanks abandoned in the retreat, and the tanks captured at Tobruk. Axis losses are usually put at about 10,000 men killed, wounded and captured, though the figure is uncertain, and the Axis also lost heavily in tanks — though their losses were made good by the tanks captured at Tobruk, where the British had left large stocks of supplies and vehicles.

The disparity in the losses — about 50,000 against about 10,000 — is a measure of the completeness of the Axis victory, and of the scale of the British defeat.

The Fall of Tobruk and Its Meaning

The fall of Tobruk on 21 June 1942 was the single greatest loss of the battle, and it deserves to be counted separately. The garrison of Tobruk — about 33,000 men, including British, South African, Indian and other Commonwealth troops — surrendered in a single day, and the loss was felt far beyond North Africa: in London, the fall of Tobruk led to a vote of no confidence in Churchill’s government, which Churchill survived, and in the Middle East it brought the British to the edge of disaster.

The supplies captured at Tobruk — food, fuel, ammunition and vehicles — were enough to supply Rommel’s army for weeks, and they enabled his advance into Egypt. The fall of Tobruk was not just a military defeat; it was a political shock, and it changed the course of the war in North Africa.

The British would not recover from Gazala and Tobruk until El Alamein, and the recovery would be led by a new commander, Montgomery, who replaced Auchinleck in August 1942.

	Allies	Axis
Killed and wounded	Part of the 50,000 total (killed, wounded and captured)	About 10,000 killed, wounded and captured (estimates vary)
Prisoners	About 33,000 at Tobruk alone; more in the Gazala fighting	Few / Ít
Tanks lost	More than 1,000 tanks lost (destroyed, abandoned and captured)	Heavy tank losses, made good by captured British tanks at Tobruk
Total	About 50,000 casualties (26 May – 21 June 1942)	About 10,000 casualties (estimates vary)

8. Map and Geography

The Gazala Line on the Map

The Battle of Gazala was fought on the coastal plain of Cyrenaica, in eastern Libya, between the Mediterranean Sea in the north and the open desert in the south. The Gazala Line ran about 60 kilometres from the coast, near the town of Gazala, south into the desert to the oasis of Bir Hakeim, and the ground it covered was flat, open desert, broken only by the escarpment that runs along the coast and by the wadis — dry riverbeds — that cut across the plain.

The boxes of the Gazala Line were strung along the line, each one a fortified position surrounded by minefields, and the gaps between them were covered by the minefields and by the British armour in reserve. The desert itself was the decisive feature of the battle: it was open, it was flat, and it allowed a mobile army to move around a static one.

The British built a line to hold Rommel, and the desert allowed Rommel to go around it.

The Cauldron and Bir Hakeim

Two places gave the battle its character: the Cauldron and Bir Hakeim. The Cauldron was a depression in the desert, south-west of Tobruk, ringed by minefields, where the tank battle of late May and early June was fought. It was a natural trap: the minefields channelled the tanks into a killing ground, and the 88 mm guns, sited on the rim of the depression, fired down into it.

Bir Hakeim, at the southern end of the line, was an oasis in the desert, a cluster of wells and ruined buildings that the Free French turned into a fortress. It was the key to the line, and its defence for two weeks delayed Rommel’s advance and cost him time he could not afford.

The geography of Gazala — a line, a cauldron and an oasis — shaped the battle, and the battle was fought for the ground that the geography made important.

9. Outcome and Legacy

The Road to Egypt

The outcome of the Battle of Gazala was the Axis advance into Egypt. After the fall of Tobruk on 21 June, Rommel drove eastwards, pursuing the retreating Eighth Army to the Egyptian frontier and beyond, to El Alamein, where the British made their stand in July 1942.

The First Battle of El Alamein, fought in July, stopped Rommel, and the Second Battle of El Alamein, fought in October–November, destroyed his army and drove it back across Libya. Gazala was the high-water mark of Rommel’s career: after Gazala, he never won another great victory, and the war in North Africa turned against him.

The battle is remembered as the moment when the British came closest to losing the Middle East, and when Rommel came closest to winning the war in Africa.

The advance into Egypt was Rommel’s boldest move, and his most dangerous: his supply lines stretched hundreds of kilometres across the desert, his fuel was short, and the British, reinforced and reorganised, were waiting at El Alamein. The First Battle of El Alamein, fought in July 1942, stopped him, and the desert war entered its final phase.

Lessons of the Desert War

Gazala left a lasting lesson for the British army, and it was a lesson that Montgomery, who took command of the Eighth Army in August 1942, took to heart. The lesson was that a desert army must be commanded as a single force, that its armour must be used in mass and with infantry support, and that a static defensive line in the open desert is a trap for the defender, not for the attacker.

Montgomery rebuilt the Eighth Army on those principles, and at El Alamein he fought the battle that Rommel had fought at Gazala — but in reverse, with the British as the mobile army and the Germans as the static one.

The battle of Gazala also left a lesson for the Germans: Rommel’s victory was won by outflanking a static line, but it was won at the cost of his supply lines, and his advance into Egypt outran his supplies and left him stranded at El Alamein. The desert war was a war of supply, and Gazala was the battle that proved it.

Memory

Gazala is remembered in Britain as a defeat, and in France as the stand at Bir Hakeim. The Free French defence of Bir Hakeim is commemorated in France every year, and the names of Koenig and his men are honoured as the men who held the southern end of the line for two weeks against overwhelming odds.

In Britain, the battle is remembered as the “Gazala Gallop” and as the fall of Tobruk, and the defeat led to the replacement of Ritchie and, in August, of Auchinleck himself, by Montgomery. In Germany, Gazala is remembered as Rommel’s greatest victory, and the field marshal’s baton that Hitler sent him on the day Tobruk fell is a symbol of the high-water mark of his career.

The battlefield itself, in the Libyan desert, is empty now, and the boxes of the Gazala Line have crumbled into the sand — but the lesson of the battle, that a mobile army beats a static one in the open desert, is still taught in military colleges today.

10. Commanders

Allied Commanders

Lieutenant General Neil Ritchie (United Kingdom). Commander of the Eighth Army at Gazala. Ritchie, a staff officer who had never commanded an army in battle, was appointed to command the Eighth Army in November 1941 and led it at Gazala. After the defeat, he was relieved of command and served in staff appointments for the rest of the war. He died in 1983.

Major General Frank Messervy (United Kingdom). Commander of the 7th Armoured Division, the “Desert Rats”, at Gazala. Messervy’s division bore the brunt of the German outflanking move on 27 May, and Messervy himself was captured by the Germans and escaped. He later commanded the 7th Armoured Division in Burma and became a senior officer in the Indian Army.

Brigadier General Marie-Pierre Koenig (France). Commander of the 1st Free French Brigade at Bir Hakeim. Koenig’s defence of the oasis for two weeks against overwhelming odds became one of the most famous actions of the desert war. He later commanded the French forces in the liberation of Paris and became a Marshal of France posthumously in 1984.

General Claude Auchinleck (United Kingdom). Commander-in-chief in the Middle East. Auchinleck appointed Ritchie to command the Eighth Army and took personal command of it after the defeat at Gazala, stopping Rommel at the First Battle of El Alamein in July 1942. He was replaced by Montgomery in August 1942.

Axis Commanders

Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (Germany). Commander of the Panzerarmee Afrika. Rommel planned and carried out the outflanking move at Gazala, took Tobruk on 21 June, and was promoted to field marshal on the day of the victory. He was stopped at El Alamein in July 1942 and defeated there in October–November. He later commanded in Normandy and was forced to kill himself in October 1944 after the July Plot against Hitler.

General Ludwig Crüwell (Germany). Commander of the Deutsches Afrikakorps. Crüwell commanded the German mobile forces in the outflanking move at Gazala, and he was captured by the British in May 1942, shortly before the battle — in fact, he was shot down and captured on 29 May, during the battle, and command of the Afrikakorps passed to Rommel himself. He spent the rest of the war as a prisoner.

General Ettore Bastico (Italy). Commander of the Italian forces in North Africa and Rommel’s nominal superior. Bastico commanded the Italian infantry that held the line in the north at Gazala, and he was responsible for the Italian contribution to the victory. He survived the war and died in 1972.

Frequently Asked Questions

When was the Battle of Gazala?
The Battle of Gazala was fought from 26 May to 13 June 1942, and the campaign ended with the fall of Tobruk on 21 June 1942.

Who won the Battle of Gazala?
The Axis won. Rommel’s Panzerarmee Afrika broke the British Eighth Army’s Gazala Line, drove the British back in the “Gazala Gallop”, and took Tobruk on 21 June 1942, capturing some 33,000 prisoners.

What was the Gazala Line?
The Gazala Line was the British defensive position west of Tobruk: a chain of fortified “boxes” held by infantry brigades, surrounded by minefields, stretching about 60 kilometres from the Mediterranean coast south to the oasis of Bir Hakeim.

What happened at Bir Hakeim?
The 1st Free French Brigade under General Koenig held the oasis of Bir Hakeim, at the southern end of the Gazala Line, for two weeks (26 May – 11 June 1942) against German and Italian attacks, before breaking out under cover of darkness. The stand delayed Rommel’s advance and became one of the most famous actions of the desert war.

What was the Cauldron?
The Cauldron was the area in the desert south-west of Tobruk, ringed by minefields, where the tank battle of late May and early June 1942 was fought. The British armour was destroyed there by the German 88 mm guns, in the fighting that broke the British line.

Why did Tobruk fall so quickly?
Tobruk in June 1942 was not the fortress of 1941: its defences had been weakened, its garrison was not prepared for a siege, and Rommel attacked with a concentrated assault supported by dive-bombers. The defences were breached within hours on 20 June, and the garrison surrendered on 21 June 1942.

Related articles

• Falaise Pocket
• Liberation of Paris
• Operation Cobra

Sources

1. Wikipedia, “Battle of Gazala” — dates, strength, casualty figures and the course of the battle.
2. UK National Archives / British Official History, The Mediterranean and Middle East, Vol. III — the official British account of Gazala and Tobruk.
3. Encyclopædia Britannica, “Battle of Gazala” — background and the battle.
4. Erwin Rommel, The Rommel Papers (ed. B. H. Liddell Hart, Collins, 1953) — Rommel’s account of the outflanking move and the taking of Tobruk.
5. Field Marshal Lord Carver, Tobruk (Batsford, 1964) — the fall of Tobruk and the Gazala campaign.
6. John Bierman and Colin Smith, The Battle of Alamein: Turning Point, World War II (Viking, 2002) — Gazala and Tobruk as the prelude to El Alamein.

Further reading

• Basil Liddell Hart, History of the Second World War (Cassell, 1970), on the desert war.
• Niall Barr, Pendulum of War: The Three Battles of El Alamein (Jonathan Cape, 2004).