My opinion on this is that the British did good as for holding onto it. Rommel broke a rule in war. Never leave the enemy entrenched behind your lines. He would then have to split up his forces to lay siege while he moves forward. He should have concentrated everything on taking Tobruk. This would have given him a forward supply base with port facilities. He again made a recklesss decision much like forcing the cancellation of the invasion of Malta in favor of using the Luftwaffe at El Alamain. Rommel was a great tactician but a lousy strategist.

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American by birth, TEXAN by the grace of GOD!

Your statement is BS mate, British carriers had armoured flight decks, while American ones where wooden. A Kamikazi to a wooden flight deck will put it out of action for a long time, while all the British carriers needed was for the crew to push the wreckage over the side and fill the dent with quick-drying concrete.

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"This Guy Fawkes bloke, do we let him off or what?"

Joe,

Consider reading this article concerning armoured and unarmored flight decks.

Were Armored Flight Decks on British Carriers Worthwhile?

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JW

Gallipoli, Fort Ticondiroga, the fall of Singapore, are a few major examples to name a few. My larger point is that the English had to be very innovative and organized in their expansion across the world. Such success comes with a price. Because of the large size of the British Commonwealth was also very ridged in their doctrine to a fault.

Such is the price for power. The British ruled some of the largest sections of the world.

Some overview mistakes from other countries.

The German Battle for Britain, The German Battle for Russia, The Russian Battle for Finland, Vichy France with their fleet, the Italians Vs the British in North Africa, The German 'super' inverntions (kingtiger, jadgtiger, V rockets, even battleships to some extent).

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They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We shall remember them. Lest We Forget

[quote=Tomcat;287473]Such is the price for power. The British ruled some of the largest sections of the world.

Some overview mistakes from other countries.

a) The German Battle for Britain, b) The German Battle for Russia, The Russian Battle for Finland, Vichy France with their fleet, the Italians Vs the British in North Africa, c) The German 'super' inverntions (kingtiger, jadgtiger, V rockets, even battleships to some extent).[/quote]

a) This was all the fault of Göring !
b) I'd say not a mistake, but rather a mistake for invasion season
c) These were all good, the V's (many took these desings) were a wonderful design, the Jagdpanther was the best WW2 tank, better than the Tiger (I)I. They should have stopped the producment of these Tigers I.

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[quote=Sturmkreuz;288479]a). Even so, a German mistake.
b.)Again still a german mistake.
c.)the V rockets were a waste of time, unless they could be properly coordinated like a modern ballistic missile. I only meant the heavy tanks I meationed and similar ones.

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They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We shall remember them. Lest We Forget

Where do you think the modern rockets come from? Same as the Stealth Hunter and more planes/tanks..

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I am in no way doubting that the Germans contributed many great weapons of today but the weapons in terms of Germany winning the war were mistakes and a waste of military and industrial power.

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They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We shall remember them. Lest We Forget

Rommel biggest error was attacking a fortified position before Italian plans/maps /blue prints of the Garrisons fortifications where made available to him,studied, and a cohesive battleplan could be made that would have exploitedweaknesses in Tobruk's defense, as it was armour/troops/fuel/munitions which where dwindled hastely trying to find a bereak through where never fully replenished and doomed any further advances by the Afrika Korp as a result...

My father in law was a 'Rat'!!! (18th Bde, 7th Div, 2nd AIF)

That was a standing joke in our family years ago. I was fortunate enough to spend many hours talking to him and his mates, and the general concensus was that " a good time was had by all' in Tobruk. They actually all seemed to enjoy it! It was an important challenge and they all knew it, and they were damned determined that Rommel was NOT going to get Tobruk!

Bob once said to me that "the 2 weeks of Milne Bay were FAR more intense than the 8 months of Tobruk'.

They all had a great respect for the germans, but mostly contempt for the Italians.

In 'Google Earth' you can still see the weapons pits and the tank ditch around the town.

I cannot give a reference, but somewhere in the Rommel Papers is the observation, "The Australian 9th Division was the finest infantry Division I ever faced".


I went to boarding school with the son of the CO of the 2/48th Battalion, H H 'Tack' Hammer. They were heros of the Battle of Al Elamein.



OJ


PS, One of the most critical factors in the defence was the pommie 25 pounder artillery, used as anti-tank - well done!

'What will it take to take Tobruk'?
A division of Australian troops to retreat.

I don't remember the exact quote but it is basically along those lines.

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They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We shall remember them. Lest We Forget

Tomcat,

What simply AMAZES me is the anti-tank ditch around the perimeter, together with the weapons pits ever 500 yards or so.

The Australians arrived in Tobruk less than a week before the 'Easter Battle', yet it was enough to stop Rommel in his first attempt.


OJ

If you look all through Australian Military History, they have a history of over coming much stronger forces with better weapons, training and leadership, Tobruk is a perfect example.

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They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We shall remember them. Lest We Forget

montgomery considered morsehead c/o 9th aus div,as his finest div c/o.freyberg c.o 2 n/z div,was considered montys next finest div c/o.
montgomery,after learning that he would lead the invasion of france,transfered many desert formations to england e.g.51st h/d,50th inf div.7th armd div,and many officers.he wanted the n/z div,to transfer to england as well.i dont know why the div was not tranfered,but there is imo no doubt that if australian troops were available,they would have been transfered to england as well to fight in 21 a/g.lee.

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fair,balanced and unafraid.thanks,4th wilts..

The pacific war was still in full swing and they needed all Anzac troops to defend and eventually force back the Japanese.

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They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We shall remember them. Lest We Forget

Rommels squandered supplies which couldn't be replaced amd against the wishes of Paulas,Hitler,Guederian and von Rudestadt...yet he is scene as a fox...lol...he was told not to carry forth...and by not securing his supply lines, repairing the railroad left in shambles ended up dooming his Afrika Korp...even his retreat to Tunisia allowed the allied airfield to now reign destruction upon Rommels ports so vital for his supplies

In reply to wtid45 final lines..

For the last year I have been researching certain elements of WW2, in particular the involvement of Polish forces, central and eastern European forces, politics between the USA, UK, Poland and the USSR and the beginnings of the Cold war.

On the 11th of November last year I took to visiting the British Legion and the Polish SPK (Polish ex-combattants association) in London, and spoke to veterans of the war. I met a British soldier who had fought at Tobruk although he was very frail, on the Polish side I did not manage to find anyone from the Carpathian Division but I met other Poles who were in Egypt at the time still in training.

What is most apparent is how little credit Poles get at Tobruk, according to Norman Davies the poles made up over 20% of the total fighting force in the most critical period of fighting at Tobruk, this was confirmed from a number of other sources both from the British and Polish side.

Likewise the Poles always seem to be categorised with the Czechs, which is largely wrong on all counts both militarily and politically.

The czech soldiers saying in North Africa (and largely throughout WW2) was:

"...I won't fight for English marmelade..."

...in other words I won't fight for English money, ironically while most of the Poles were equipped and trained by Britain (with exception to certain units such as the Carpathian Division) they were not fighting for British money (it is not that anyone was fighting for money but all armies recieved pay including the British) but recieved their pay from the Polish Gold reserve which had miraculously been smuggled by ships out of Poland just at the outbreak of war and was held by authorities in Canada (this was to be later confiscated in 1945 by the British government as the repayment for equipping and paying the free Polish forces during WW2)..

That the czechs simply did not want to fight is both backed up by the accounts from Polish veterans and by British North African high command archives.

-According to the Polish veterans I spoke to the czech attitude to them (there is some similarity in language with Czech and Polish) was that they were fools for fighting with the British (which ironically turned out to be true) and that they were wasting their time.

-The British high command archives denote that the Czechs were "...unsuitable..." for front line service, and were subsequently used for rear duty as a last resort (such as supply duty or when marching the Italians off to captivity).

Likewise the Czechs seem to get far more praise and/or recognition when it comes to the Battle of Britain when only a handful took part. In the year 1941 and in particular september the most crucial month of the Battle of Britain, hardened veteran Polish fighter pilots again made up over 20% of the RAF (this is including the PAF units under the wing of the RAF). Flight No.303 was the highest decorated unit of the RAF(PAF) in the whole of the war, and a pole flying in the PAF/RAF had the highest total kills of any allied pilot in the whole of WW2, flying in the Poland '39 (where he was already an ace), France '40, Britain '41-'43 and Wester Europe '44-'45 campaigns respectively (this is negating Soviet propaganda of ace pilots who downed 300+ planes, meaning in total the soviet air force shot down 3 times more luftwaffe planes than the nazis managed to produce in the whole war).

While there were no ethnic polish pilots on the German side during the war (despite those of mixed german/polish background), there was a large contigent of czechs flying in the luftwaffe (there is a Me-262 in the Czech Air Museum), including the czech medium bombers which had been captured by Nazi germany before the start of WW2, these were subsequently used to bomb london and in some cases were still manned by their original czech crews. Likewise the proportion of czechs who flew over to fight on the British side is a miniscule percent of the total czech air force (and virtually non-existent compared to the Poles).


The reasons why the Poles are usually wrongly thrown together with czechs and other central/eastern european groups that participated on the allied side is quite clear as I will go onto explain.


Amongst the Czechs are many other groups of ethnicities such as Ukraine, Lithuania, Hungary etc. that adhere to the "we were betrayed by the West at Yalta, by the British (and Americans) to Stalin etc." view of WW2. Britain had made no firm promises or written agreements to any of these ethnicities or countries concerning their future borders and autonomy, and conveniently the Poles fall into this group.


For example, the surrender of the Cossacks in Austria 1945 to the British who subsequently handed them over Stalin (and their deaths), is regarded as the British Cossack betrayal. But this is grossly wrong, the other side of the story that most people amazingly don't hear is that this was the same ruthless XVth SS Cossack Cavalry Corps who brutally murdered thousands of innocent people and were considered one of the most cruel wings of the SS. Besides which Britain had no political or moral obligation to help this ethnic group and there were few who had sympathy for the Cossacks who were reported to have committed inhumane atrocities against resistance fighters in Eastern Europe.


This case and many others like it are collectively known as the "Western Betrayal", and is the claim of many central/eastern european countries that ended up behind the iron curtain.


The fact is Poland was the only country out of all those that found themselves on the wrong side of the curtain, that Britain had a real obligation to. There were written agreements, (despite the entente between France, Britain and Poland the reason why Britain went to war) between Churchill and Sikorski. Poland had a substantial force fighting along side with the British and was the 4th largest allied army (after Britain and her colonies), the Poles took part in every major British battle in Europe including the fall of france, taking more losses than the combined US and British armed forces during the whole war. When it was clear that Britain had betrayed Poland (it was the German Secret service that informed the Poles in Italy over the radio of their betrayal at Tehran), the poles decided to stop fighting meaning the virtual collapse of the Italian east front, Churchill flew straight to the Polish front in Italy to pacify the Poles and re-assure them of his promises and obligations..


It was British policy to ignore the poles after 1945, and largely to diminish any part that the Poles played in the war thus distancing British responsability for Poland. In this way Poland was and is collectively thrown in to the camp of "Western betrayal" countries, and/or thrown together with the czechs or free french when regarding any military action.


It is amazing that many of the archives in London concerning Poland in the war simply went "missing" at the end of 1945, especially concerning the enigma (Alan Turing was given the enigma machine + the continental code by the Poles). All the files and documents from Poland's Home army decoding branch (which located the V1 sites from code decryptions) Poland's Bletchley park, handed over in 1945 to the British were destroyed "by mistake". Likewise 95% of the documents concerning the suspicious death of Sikorski (Gibraltar plane crash '43) which were supposed to be released on Churchill's death have not been released despite what the secrecy act has to say 65 years on, the British government has extended the release date by another 25 years so we will have to wait until 2020+ when all the veteran poles of the war are for certain in their graves to find out the truth.


Sorry for the rant. What I am trying to get at is it's not right to line Poland up with countries such as the Czechs in WW2, and especially not when it comes to Tobruk. This has been the policy of the British establishment, historians and apologists in order to dilute Poland's huge contribution in the war, when the more I read about Poland's contribution the more I realise without Poland we would have very possibly been praising Hitler and speaking german, as the Queen said in 1992 "..if it were not for the poles, the candle of freedom may very well have been snuffed out.."

If you would like to know more, or find this too much to swallow, there is a great book you can start with...

"For our freedom and yours" by Olson and Cloud

informative post TB and nice add on to my earlier post

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WHEN YOU GO HOME, TELL THEM OF US AND SAY, FOR YOUR TOMORROW,WE GAVE OUR TODAY. Epitaph on the Kohima memorial .