"By early afternoon, 13th Corps was once more counting booty..."

Correlli Barnett, in The Desert Generals, described the scene after the fall of Tobruk: "By early afternoon, 13th Corps was once more county the booty while 7th Armoured Division rolled away to the west." General O'Connor continued to give a textbook presentation of how to conduct blitzkrieg. Half of his enemies were in Cairo and London, sadly enough. O'Connor's answer to the wrong-headedness of his superiors was to move so quickly that the brass would not be able to stop him. They had attacked Tobruk starting at 5:40am on January 21st and by afternoon they had conquered the place. General O'Connor was already moving towards the next prize, Benghazi.