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World War II Remembered: Fighting the Fox
By Jennifer King and Timothy Rollins
March 18, 2002

Dateline: Early 1942
Fighting the Fox
North African Theater of Operations

The North African war was first started by Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, who envisioned himself at the head of a grand reprise of the Roman Empire. Italy, which had annexed Libya from Turkey in 1912, had 200,000 troops stationed there, in Tripoli. The British, stationed in Alexandria, Egypt, by contrast, had merely 63,000 troops and far less material.

Allied interest in North Africa was keen. The British were quite concerned with keeping open the Suez Canal, their lifeline to the Far East and India. Should the Axis be successful in dominating Syria, Iran and Iraq; they would control the oil which fueled the Royal Navy, immobilize Turkey, paralyze the critical Russian Lend-Lease program and threaten India. Therefore, it was vital to keep them from getting a stronghold in the region.

The Italian troops, under the command of Marshal Rodolfo Graziani, had first attacked Egypt on 13 September 1940. They established an outpost some sixty miles inside Egypt that was to hold until December, when British General Sir Archibald Wavell launched a counter-offensive that would drive the Italians back some 400 miles to Beda Fomm.

On 7 February 1941, Wavell's forces succeeded in cutting off the retreating Italian 10th Army, at Beda Fomm. The Italians, recognizing that they were caught between Wavell's forces and the 6th Australian Division, surrendered. 130,000 Italian soldiers were now POWs, lessening Graziani's advantage considerably.

Adolf Hitler realized that he would have to come to the aid of the beleaguered Italians. Hitler sent, as his commander, a man who had fought in the First War as a Lieutenant with the 124th Wurttemburg Infantry Regiment. That highly decorated combat leader, who had commanded one of the first Panzer divisions to reach the Channel in the new war, was Erwin Rommel.

Rommel, (1891-1944) had taught in the War College Institute, where he first met up with later prominent Nazis. By 1939, he was a Brigadier General, and in 1940 he was in command of the 7th Panzer Division, which swept through France with a rapidity that would impress others with Rommel's skill.

On 12 February 1941, Rommel arrived in Tripoli and began planning his offensive. Rommel, and his Afrika Korps, consisted initially of the 5th Light and 15th Panzer Divisions. Unfortunately, at this same time, the Allied troops in Egypt were being thinned in order to try and stem the German tide in Athens.

Beginning on 24 March 1941, the British, were routed from Beda Fomm. By 3 April, Rommel had captured Benghazi and by 11 April, he had chased the Allied forces back to their original lines in Egypt. The 9th Australian Division was holed up in Tobruk, surrounded on all sides by German and Italian forces.

The war in North Africa then settled into a war of attrition. The vast expanses of the desert, and the complete lack of roads beyond the coastlines, forced the competing armies to make feints, at which point their supply lines would be stretched untenably. The other side then would make a successful foray, until their supply lines were likewise hampered.

In April, General Wavell, resupplied by convoy, attempted to unseat Rommel. His tanks, thrown up against the much superior German 88mm tank guns, fared poorly. Wavell was then dispatched to India, replaced on 21 June 1941, by General Sir Claude Auchinleck.

The British held Island of Malta played a critical part in the eventual success of the North African campaign, providing a sea base for launching attacks or re-supplying the Allied forces. The breaking of the German Enigma Code also gave the Allies an advantage in intercepting convoys or transport planes bound for Rommel. In the attempt to knock the British out of Malta, the Luftwaffe pounded the island, conducting 169 bombing raids in December of 1941 and 262 raids in January of 1942.

General Auchinleck, committed to driving Rommel and the Italian forces out of Libya, launched Operation Crusader on 18 November 1941. The British were initially successful, liberating the Australian garrison at Tobruk on 10 December. However, now it was the British lines that were stretched thin, and when Rommel counterattacked on 21 January 1942, he successfully pushed the British back to Gazala-Bir Hacheim by 28 January.

During Crusader, the British had lost 18,000 men killed and wounded; the German-Italians had 38,000 killed or wounded. The British had lost 440 tanks to the German's 340, and aircraft losses were about equal at 300. During the spring months, the lines would be resupplied, getting ready for the next big battle, which would occur in May.

And, in November, green American troops under Generals Eisenhower and Patton would meet the fearsome Germans for the first time in the war. ***