Siege of Tobruk 1941
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 10 April 1941 – 27 November 1941 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1941 | Wikidata P580 (start time) |
| Era | World War II era (1939–1945) | derived from year |
| Location | Libya | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Africa | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | North African campaign | Wikidata P361 |
| Coordinates | 32.0761, 23.9614 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The siege of Tobruk () 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. The tenacious defenders quickly became known as the Rats of Tobruk. After 231 days, they were finally relieved by the British Eighth Army.
In late 1940, the Allies had defeated the Italian 10th Army during Operation Compass (9 December 1940 – 9 February 1941) and trapped the remnants at Beda Fomm. On 22 January 1941, Tobruk's Italian garrison surrendered. But in early 1941, much of the British Western Desert Force was sent to the Greek and Syria–Lebanon campaigns, leaving only a skeleton force short of equipment and supplies.
Adolf Hitler felt compelled to send reinforcements, commanded by Generalleutnant Erwin Rommel, to rescue his beleaguered Italian ally. Rommel launched Operation Sonnenblume (6 February – 25 May 1941), driving the Allies back across Libya to the Egyptian border. However, Tobruk held out, depriving Rommel of a supply port closer to the Egyptian–Libyan border than Benghazi, 560 mi (900 km) west of the Egyptian frontier.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Siege of Tobruk (revision 1370745858), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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Browse more: battles in Libya · Africa · World War II era battles