Patience ran thin for the German army in Africa
Historian Malcolm Goode looks at events taking place in North Africa 80 years ago in November 1941
THE Allies were allowed time to plan in November 1941 as supply problems hit the German Army fighting in North Africa. That was until commander General Erwin Rommel lost his patience - leading to the loss of several Burton soldiers.
The war in North Africa had been fought intermittently against first the Italian Army since late 1940, and since April 1941, both the Italian Army and the German Africa Korp had been forced to wait for re-enforcements of both men and equipment before he could attack the British Desert Army.
Due to interceptions of Italian radio communications, the staff at Bletchley Park were able to inform the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean of supply convoys sailing from Italy to North Africa.
In September 1941, two large passenger ships carrying reenforcements of Africa Korps Infantry were sunk by the British submarine HMS Upholder causing a massive loss of life for the Germans.
A total of 58 supply ships were sunk by the Royal Navy between September and November, the Africa Korp veterans began to call the Mediterranean the ‘German swimming pool.’
Finally, German commander Erwin Rommel ran out of patience and despite being seriously short of men and munitions, he planned his strike against the British at Tobruk to begin on November 21.
Despite the fact that he had been warned by the Italians that the British were about to launch a major offensive, he chose to disbelieve them and made his preparations.
As it happened, on November 18, three days before his planned assault on the port of Tobruk, the newly named British Eighth Army, commanded by Lieutenant General Sir Alan Cunningham crossed the Libyan border in what was called ‘Operation Crusader.’
The British had developed a cunning plan to approach the German forces without being noticed by having made the approach marches at night under strict radio silence, and hiding by day under convenient sandstorms and thunderstorms, the Eighth Army achieved total surprise.
The aim and objective of Operation Crusader was to launch an attack against Italian and German forces surrounding the besieged port of Tobruk.
The idea was to reinforce the Tobruk bridgehead and then the final objective was to recapture Cyrenaica and providing that was successful, the Eighth Army would invade Tripolitania, which today forms the North Western part of
Libya.
After sustaining heavy losses Rommel ordered his army to retreat which relieved the pressure on Tobruk, however, heavy fighting would continue.
Because the Eighth Army had not achieved all of its aims Lieutenant General Cunningham advocated that his force should terminate Operation Crusader, the overall commander of the North African force, General Claude Auchinleck, took exception to this and promptly replaced Cunningham with Lieutenant General Neil Ritchie.