Fall of Tobruk 1942 and South African Major-General Klopper’s role

[Kingfish]

Regarding German paras dropping on Tobruk, I did a quick search on the web and found this. Note what Neil Malan says down near the bottom. He found confirmation of the para drop, although he doesn't say from where. I guess one could e-mail him if they were interested in finding out.

BTW, that page is part of this site. Not all the links work.

[WineCape]

Kingfish,

Many thanks. Have e-mailed Niel Malan as well as the reference to this topic here on the forum. Maybe he can divulge more clarity on the paradrop of Tobruk in 1942, if any.

[JasonC]

I did a little investigating on mine numbers. No deep search, just the first info I could find. The immediate environs of a single brigade "box" in the Gazala line was apparently sown with about 20,000 mines. The whole position, which included a continuous minefield between the boxes from the sea to the Free French box at the southern end of the line, came to around 500,000 mines. The bulk of these were taken from the Tobruk perimeter, between the first seige and the second, successful assault. For what it is worth.

[WineCape]

As regard to the possible paradrop (or not) when Rommel took Tobruk in 1942, Niel Malan (see Kingfish’s post above) responded to my e-mail request to further any info to clarify the situation:

I whish I could help you more, but what I read was not more

than a sencence two years ago. As far as I can recall the book was:

Call # 940.5423 JAC

Author: Jackson, W. G. F. (William Godfrey Fothergill), Sir, 1917-

Title: Battle for North Africa, 1940-43

Maps: Caroline Metcalfe-Gibson

Publisher: Batsford, London 1975

The paragraph I remember described how the defences of Tobruk were shattered by armoured punches, tanks inside the [perimeter] lines, confusion everywhere, "and into the midst of it a detachment of paratroopers descended." Or something like this. That's all I can remember. The impression I gained was that the paradrop was not essential to the operations, or at least not a major factor in its success.

So in all probability, if a drop was made, it might have been done on a small/limited scale. Rommel needed the fuel dumps intact at all costs for his drive to the frontier.

Sidenote:

Fridrick Ruge, the naval adviser to Rommel in Normandy, relates ...

"The table conversation those days in Normandy was dominated by North Africa. Rommel spoke about the unsuccessful attack on Tobruk in 1941 and the successful surprise attack on Tobruk which captured the city in 1942. With his dry humor, Gause, who had been Rommel's Chief of Staff in Africa, added the human highlights to Rommel's tactical and operational descriptions. This included the story about the regimental commander who had come directly from Germany and, en route to El Mechili, had made hotel reservations for his staff and himself. Gause assigned him to the third hotel on the right side of the main street. All of El Machili however, consisted of only two huts!

The OKW [German Army HQ’s] too, became the target of our ridicule, because they had inquired sternly if it was true that the troops of the Africa Korps had looted the shops in Bir Temrad. All of Bir Temrad consisted of a hole in the ground filled with some water and a gasoline barrel turned upside down holding a sign post.”

[ October 24, 2003, 05:59 AM: Message edited by: WineCape ]

[ozi_digger]

As an aside, have been reading Alamein (Auth: Mark johnston & Peter Stanley) and they offer a reason for why the first garrison held out for so long vis a vis the short time held by the SA garrison.

Johnston and Stanley assert that the first garrison commander, Major-(later Lieutenant-) General Sir Leslie Morshead was the reason. Morshead commanded from April-October 1941 and gained a high reputation for aggressive tactics and imperturbability. The seige gelled the men together. They night-patrolled aggressively, took many prisoners and won the first Australian VC of the war.

Morshead was recognised afterward with a knighthood in 1942. His troops held him in high esteem. So developed was the esprit de corps that 9th Australian Division began to recognise themselves as 9th Div instead of 8th Army.

In comparison, Klopper has had no such praises sung about him.

[Mr Furious]

Originally posted by Determinant:

<SNIP>

Every cloud does have a silver lining though. The whole sad episode has given us the wonderful story told by Barrie Pitt of the greatest bar fight in the Middle East: a pub in Cairo is packed with heavily drinking Australians. Some South Africans walk in. Everything goes quiet. A chair scrapes as a Digger stands up. 'Hello mate,' he says 'Have a seat, I'll buy you a beer. You look done-in. Have you run all the way from Tobruk?' Thus ensued a fight worthy of a Hollywood Western. Pitt proudly drops his authorial objectivity to record that he suffered a split lip and several broken ribs in that fight.

As the Duke of Wellington observed: 'God knows what they do to the enemy but they terrify me'.

Yes us Aussies are renowned for pub fights during WW2 the greatest being The Battle of Melbourne, a fight that started between US Servicemen and Australian Soldiers on leave at Young& Jacksons pub here in Melbourne, Victoria. The fight lasted 3 days, people would go home, go to sleep and come back for a bit of a fight, the cops couldn't break it up, the commanding officers couldn't control their men (and were usually involved thick in the fighting anyway)and i don't think there were any resultant deaths either. No one was court-marshalled and it was estimated taht at any one time up to 500 men were fighting in the pub and on the streets... trying to get into the pub.

I've also read a lot about the AIF's involvement in the middle east and in particular Tobruk. Throughout these books the authors made it clear that "no man's land" between Aussie and German lines ie the minefield and immediate surrounds was really held by the Aussies who maintained continual patrols around the minefields and attacked and ambusehed the opposition armies as much aspossible, particularly the Italian armies who they found broke easier then the Afrika Korps, breaking the backs of a lot of attacks, that really should of broken through. Of course any war reporting from the personal view is probably biased in some fashion, so i'm not sure how accurate the reporting is.

I'll have to find these books now and read up on them again.