Arms and Armour

Battle of Gazala

The Battle of Gazala, also the Gazala Offensive (Italian: Battaglia di Ain el-Gazala; German: Schlacht von Gazala), was fought near the village of Gazala during the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War, west of the port of Tobruk in Libya, from 26 May to 21 June 1942. Axis troops consisting of German (Panzerarmee Afrika; Generaloberst Erwin Rommel) and Italian units fought the British Eighth Army (General Sir Claude Auchinleck, also Commander-in-Chief Middle East) composed mainly of British Commonwealth, Indian and Free French troops. The Axis troops made a decoy attack in the north as the main attack (Operation Venezia) moved round the southern flank of the Gazala position. Unexpected resistance at the south end of the line around the Bir Hakeim box by the Free French garrison left the Panzerarmee Afrika with a long and vulnerable supply route around the Gazala Line. Rommel retired to a defensive position backing onto Allied minefields (the Cauldron), forming a base in the midst of the British defences. Italian engineers lifted mines from the west side of the minefields to create a supply route through to the Axis side. Operation Aberdeen, an attack by the Eighth Army to finish off the Panzerarmee, was poorly co-ordinated and defeated in detail; many British tanks were lost and the Panzerarmee regained the initiative. The Eighth Army withdrew from the Gazala Line and the Axis troops overran Tobruk in a day. Rommel pursued the Eighth Army into Egypt and forced it out of several defensive positions. The Battle of Gazala is considered the greatest victory of Rommel's career. As both sides neared exhaustion, the Eighth Army checked the Axis advance at the First Battle of El Alamein. To support the Axis advance into Egypt, the planned attack on Malta (Operation Herkules) was postponed. The British were able to revive Malta as a base for attacks on Axis convoys to Libya, greatly complicating Axis supply difficulties at El Alamein.

Also on this shelf

See also

• ▸Ebernburg Castle
• ▸Basilica Cathedral of Mazatlán
• ▸Battle of the Eureka Stockade

Uncatalogued shelf

Text from Wikipedia; plate via Wikimedia Commons. Text CC BY-SA 4.0; plate freely licensed (see Commons). Source record. Images and catalogue data are reproduced from open-access collections.