Australian concerns in June and July 1941

Back on 17 June 1941, General Blamey sent a memorandum to General Wavell where he expressed concern over how ten Australian units outside of Tobruk were serving under non-Australian commands. The Australian position was that these units should be reassigned so that they were under Australian commanders. This was a concern expressed by the Australian prime minister, which was then Mr. Menzies. Wavell's staff drafted a reply which they sent to General Blamey asking for his comments.
Later, on 26 June, General Blamey sent a telegraph message to the prime minster. In the message, General Blamey wrote answers to questions that he had received from Mr. Menzies, the prime minister.  The most important question was his opinion about the situation at Tobruk and if the 9th Australian Division could continue to hold onto the fortress. In his reply, General Blamey expressed confidence that the Australians could continue to resist attack. He also replied that the division could be removed by sea and that the Royal Navy thought an evacuation was possible. There was no immediate cause for worry, as General Blamey had requested a plan for the contingency. At this time, the 9th Australian Division chief of staff was in Cairo and he did not see any immediate cause for concern. General Blamey also expressed his opinion that he was having an influence about the need for formations to be intact and not distributed piecemeal. That was eventually a concern of Bernard Law Montgomery when he eventually assumed command of the field army in North Africa in late 1942. General Blamey also addressed the proposals for a new corps organization that included an ANZAC Corps. Having two corps seemed to preclude all Australians being under a single, Australian command, but there were no objections to having the New Zealand Division in the proposed ANZAC Corps.
By mid-July 1941, there was little progress about consolidating the Australian units. At that point, no Australian division had all of its constituent units under its command. That meant that there was no possibility of training the divisions as units. In late June, there was still no sign that General Blamey was asking for the 9th Australian Division to be withdrawn from Tobruk. This is based on the account in Vol.III of the Australian Official History.

Political problems in Australia in 1941

From the perspective of most Australian soldiers in Tobruk, they expected that they would leave Tobruk when the siege was lifted. After the failure of Operation Battleaxe, that seemed to be unlikely to happen any time soon. General Blamey, the senior Australian soldier in the Middle East, suggested that the 9th Australian Division be withdrawn by ship. Hardly anyone in Tobruk during the summer of 1941 knew anything about this possibility. When WInston Churchill published his volume The Grand Alliance, postwar, that was news to most people in Auxtralia. In his book, Churchill only quoted his messages to the Government of Australia, and did not quote the responses from the Australian Government. Churchill portrayed the situation as the Australian Government feeling political pressure from the Opposition as the cause.

From the Australian perspective, this seems not to have been true. There was a committee of the leaders of the three political parties that met on this subject. The subject was raised by General Blamey's communication. The dispersion of the Australian forces in the Middle East and Mediterranean was the basis for their concern. Another aspect of this was the formation of the ANZAC Corps in Greece, which was ultimately dissolved. There was continued interested in having the combined New Zealand and Australian divisions included in a reconstituted ANZAC Corps. In early May 1941, General Wavell had written approvingly of having an ANZAC Corps. General Blamey wrote that he thought that having the three Australian divisions and the New Zealand division grouped into two two-division corps was a good idea. The 7th and 9th Australian Divisions would form an Australian corps and the New Zealand division and the 6th Australian Division would form the ANZAC Corps. General Blamey endorsed General Freyberg as the ANZAC Corps commander with General Laverack as the Australian Corps commander.

By 7 June 1941, General Blamey wrote to the Australian Prime Minister about the need to have fixed formations in place, rather than everything being ad hoc. That was mentioned as his main reason for agreeing to the ANZAC Corps with an Australian Corps. This is based on the account in Vol.III of the Australian Official History.

Rommel's plan for Tobruk and the Australian response in June and July 1941

Rommel seemed to be intent on containing Tobruk with large numbers of mines. They would lay minefields that would keep the Tobruk defenders from breaking out and from attacking the Axis supply lines. Mine laying was an ongoing project that continued until the breakout in November 1941. The Salient was a central feature of Tobruk. This had been the scene of the original Axis attack that had penetrated the Tobruk perimeter. The Salient was therefore had mines added continuously. Across the north, lines of mines were laid from west to east, between the escarpments and wadis. Another line, often three lines of mines, was laid across the south and up to the coast. The Australian active patrolling meant that they were quickly aware of the minefields.

Australian patrols in the south found that parts of the minefields were not defended by guns. Once that was discovered, a bold operation on 1 July 1941 set out to a minefield about 4,000 yards to the south. They set out in vehicles to the minefield. They "disarmed the anti-personnel mines". They lifted 504 anti-tank mines and brought them back to add to their defenses. This was the largest and most successful operation during this period. Another patrol went out on 9 July and returned with 120 25pdr rounds that had been left in a gun emplacement in January 1941 during the original Tobruk capture. This ammunition had been left by men of the 6th Division. Another operation on 12 July brought in 202 mines, presumably anti-tank mines. They brought in more mines the next day.

Reinforcements from June and July started to arrive and in June and July. The new arrivals proved to be largely untrained. Assembling four infantry divisions was very difficult when they were relying on voluntary enlistments. Officers not actually involved with the war in the Middle East seemed to lack understanding of the importance of training the men who were lately enlisted. Even in the Middle East, away from the front lines, there was the same lack of focus on training. The setup was made in such a way that a useful training program could not be implemented. We have to suspect that the issue was lack of experience and knowledge. Key people were new to the war effort and were ignorant of what was most needed. This is based on the account in Vol.III of the Australian Official History.

Brigade boundaries from June 1941 at Tobruk

There was a division between the southern and eastern sectors at Tobruk from June 1941 into July. The line was just to the west of post R55. The 24th Brigade held the southern sector. The 26th Brigade held the eastern sector. The southern sector ran from posts R52 and R53 to the Salient. That included the El Adem Road area. The eastern sector ran from the boundary past the Bardia Road up to the coast. From early June, the men found that there was little evidence of enemy occupation from the perimeter outwards. For example some men walked some five miles into enemy territory without encountering enemy soldiers. Another group of men on another night walked to the tracks between "the Trigh Capuzzo and the Bardia Road". One consequence of Operation Battleaxe was that the Germans built an asphalt road in the area. This would become important later in 1941 during the Crusader Battle.

Routine patrols at night were established from June. Along with the patrols, observation posts that were manned during the day were established. From 18 June, the 2/32nd Battalion established observation posts outside the perimeter. Two posts were established, one at a walled camp and one at Bir el Azazi.

Near the 2/32nd Battalion, but in the other brigade, men from the 2/24th Battalion would go out to informal observation posts from the end of June. When the 2/32nd Battalion was replaced by the 2/12th Battalion, they continued the practice of occupying observation posts during the day. By then, the 2/24th Battalion had started using the walled camp for a daylight observation post.

On 7 July, the routine was interrupted when three men fired on Italians in a truck. The men had drawn attention to themselves, so they were brought out by carrier. They would use carriers there the next day, but they stopped using the post for infantry. Only later in July did the 2/9th Battalion revert to using the area as a daylight observation post.

In the east, the first attempt at daylight observation posts was taken on 27 June by the 2/23rd Battalion. The posts seemed to have been intermittently used in the east. The pioneers moved in after 15 July. They laid a minefield around "Jack" observation post on 19 July. This is based on the account in Vol.III of the Australian Official History.

More developments from July 1941 at Tobruk

By late July 1941, the counter-battery fire operation was in place and operating. Direct phone lines were a prominent feature of the organization. They were now able to very promptly fire on enemy guns when they were noticed.

The ammunition supply situation had improved enough that by 17 July, artillery commanders were allowed to increase the rounds fired per gun per day to 20 rounds, if there was a need. Once this was permitted, the ammunition used per day increased immediately. This actually was an indication that the guns were allowed to fire on targets as they were seen, and allowed the British guns to be more effective.

The captured Italian guns continued to have problems that made them a danger. The 75mm guns worked well, but the 100mm guns were very troublesome. All but one were abandoned. The 149mm guns were considered dangerous, but they were fired by very long lanyards by men protected by sangers.

At a time when moving supplies was a priority, there was what now seems to have been a mistake, to reduce the base area staff. In addition, personnel resources for use by the engineers was being reduced. That was at a time when they were called upon to perform tasks such as preparing beaches for embarkation, in case of a need to abandon Tobruk. The engineers were also required to plan and implement a demolition scheme to be fired in case of a withdrawal. Ironically, when Tobruk fell in 1942, none of these plans were implemented, because by the time there was a need, the people who had done the planning and implementation were long gone.

Along with the other preparations, large amounts of Italian ammunition were either detonated or were dumped into the sea. The latter practice was very dangerous, because some of the ammunition that was dumped exploded and killed and injured men.

Work continued on implementing defenses in greater depth. Units that were supposedly in reserve were diverted very quickly into digging defenses. These included adding more to the inner defensive line, the "Blue Line", and other "Switch Lines". These were additional defensive lines beyond those in the outer perimeter and inner defenses.

The area to the southeast, outside the perimeter, was occupied by Italian units. They had moved into position as early as April 1941. They had built defensive positions that blocked the Bardia Road. During June and July, soldiers from the Trento Division held this area. Further south was largely unoccupied. A greater amount of work was done by men from the Pavia Division starting after 10 June. This is based on the account in Vol.III of the Australian Official History.

July 1941 devoted to patrolling at Tobruk

While there were no major operations planned at Tobruk during July 1941, the month was spent on active patrolling and battalion-sized raids. Artillery was very involved with the activities. You had the southern artillery group that included the 1st RHA and the 107th RHA. In one case, 14 guns fired on an enemy position that included trenches. Fourteen guns fired, although six of them broke down during the barrage. They fired as many as 1,220 rounds during a two hour period. Six of the guns were 149mm howitzers. This particular operation occurred on the night of 16 July. The next night saw the 2/28th Battalion and the 18th Cavalry, along with some British commandos, attacking in the Wadi Sehel. The attack had support from the 2/12th Field Regiment. They fired about 1,200 rounds during the operations. This attack provoked artillery fire over a four hour period from the enemy. The response from Italian and German radio stations described the attacks as attempting to "break out of an unsupportable position" or at least as "lively reconnaissance activity".

The patrol activities were finally better equipped than earlier in the siege. Battalions now were issued a number of Thompson sub-machine guns. The enemy response to active patrolling now included using search lights to illuminate patrols. The first time this was seen was on 15 June. The Australians discovered that the search lights were mounted on trucks. They also saw cables that seemed to be supplying power. Now, when they discovered cables, they cut them and sometimes removed pieces. The enemy started using colored filters for search lights.

Another development in July was the use of Alsatian dogs by Italian units. They seemed to be only used to sound an alarm when patrols were approaching.

From late May 1941, a large gun started firing at the Tobruk harbor. The men of Tobruk named the gun "Bardia Bill". The counter-battery group did not believe that the gun was firing from Bardia, but the troops always thought that the fun was located at Bardia. One thought was that when the British evacuated Bardia, they had left a large gun there, undestroyed. One time, they found pieces of a 21cm shell, probably from a Skoda gun. In another case, they had what they thought were shell fragments from a Schneider gun. This is based on the account in Vol.III of the Australian Official history.

Reducing the Tobruk garrrison and the supply situation

The idea that there was a large, non-productive population at Tobruk seems to have been a fantasy of General Morshead. By July, that was absolutely not true. What was needed was for the garrison to be prepared to hold out for a long period of time. Food and ammunition would be accumulated to cover some sixty days. They would prepare a plan to evacuate Tobruk by ship, but they would be closely held and not made public to the garrison.

General Morshead attended the last meeting in Egypt with General Wavell. General Auchinleck was also at the meeting. Supplying Tobruk was an important topic discussed at the meeting. They had decided that as much as 230 tons per day would need to be shipped to keep the fortress supplied. They eventually realized that they only needed to send 170 tons per day with Tobruk having a 25,000 man population. The navy was able to bring in 170 tons per day during July 1941. They were able to send somewhat less in August. Fortunately, the garrison was less than 25,000 men.

Typically, General Morshead wanted greater offensive strength to be enable an active defense, rather than a passive defense. General Auchinleck declined to make the commitment. There would not be any major commitment of armored forces in Tobruk, as Auchinleck wanted to build up the army in Egypt for offensive operations with tanks. After this, Generals Blamey and Morshead met with the RAF commanders and arranged for reconnaissance missions to be flown from El Gubbi and Sidi Barrani. They also would provide some army-cooperation aircraft to support Tobruk.

With General Morshead on an extended absence from Tobruk, Brigadier Murray was acting as fortress commander in his absence. Morshead arrived back in Tobruk on 9 July 1941. During this period, while General Morshead was gone from Tobruk, there was more shuffling of brigades and battalions in the defense. In some cases, battalions, such as the 2/48th were moved from one brigade to another. The 2/48th Battalion had replaced the 2/1st Pioneer Battalion. They continued the practice of having a brigade in reserve for the division. By late July, Brigadier Wooten's brigade (18th Brigade) moved back into the reserve. There were no big offensive operations conducted in July, although they continued to patrol and to conduct raids on enemy positions. This is based on the account in Vol.III of the Australian Official History.

The effects of the ammunition shortage at Tobruk in June and July 1941

The defense of Tobruk had been made possible by the frequent usage of the 25pdr guns. They had customarily fired some 40 tons of 25pdr high explosive rounds per day. The situation had become critical by 6 June 1941, when the guns were limited to ten rounds per day. In June, they were reduced to some five tons in all of Tobruk per day.

In contrast, the enemy artillery became much more active. They also had the advantage of having gun fire spotted from the air. The German aviators knew that there were no British Hurricane fighters as possible problems. The enemy artillery was being used to target the British artillery. The British gunners thought that if they had more ammunition, the enemy would be much more constrained in their fire. One bright spot for the Tobruk defenders was that there was an ample supply of Italian 149mm howitzer ammunition. The British artillery was organized into three sectors. All made use of the Italian howitzers.

During the first few days in July, there was an unexplained growth in enemy shelling. They were firing some 2,500 shells per day on the 3rd and 4th of July. After that, the situation returned to what had been the normal artillery fire. The British were able to match the enemy, tit-for-tat. The 60pdr guns still had problems with ammunition supply, but the 2/12th Field Regiment was able to make good use of their captured artillery. In fact, their troops in the Salient were required to fire one hundred rounds per day. The situation helped when Colonel Goodwin had translated range tables from Italian to English.

One positive development in June was the creation of an effective counter-battery organization. Lt-Col. Klein arrived to lead the counter-battery organization. He was the counter-battery officer for the I Australian Corps. By later in June, the 60 pounders were able to conduct effective counter-battery work.

A peculiar feature of Tobruk was that both sides employed raised observation posts. The enemy forces often installed tripods to hold observation posts. British and Australian posts could be on posts or they might be on scaffolding. The defenders were puzzled by ten enemy posts that were installed on 26 June, but were not used for observation posts.

Late in June, the decision-makers in London and the Middle East reconsidered the situation at Tobruk. Did they want to continue to hold Tobruk? The answer was "yes", but with a reduced garrison without "extra" troops. This is based on the account in Vol.III of the Australian Official History.

The big move to shorten the salient at Tobruk during late June and early July 1941

The 2/15th Battalion commander, Major Ogle, was determined to move the perimeter forward by some 700 yards in the center of his position. The operation would stretch over five days, completing early on 3 July 1941. The first step was for the engineers to mark the area from the positions that they were presently in out to where they would move. They would deactivate mines as they went. They also marked the position of the new wire to be installed. The second step was to inactivate more mines and all the booby traps so that there were now "safe areas". For the third and fourth nights, they occupied infantry with the process of digging new positions and laying wire.

On the day that the 2/15th Battalion was to move forward, there was increased enemy activity, almost as if they were forewarned. There were troop movements along the entire salient area. Elsewhere, there was more artillery fire. All night, enemy reconnaissance aircraft overflew the area and used flares after the moon had set. The Australian historian thought that a 3rd Armoured Brigade exercise and triggered the enemy activity rather than what the 2/15th Battalion was doing.

Over time, the health of the men in Tobruk had deteriorated. There was wide-spread digestive problems, so that diarrhea was almost universal. That had been what had originally side-lined General Richard O'Connor after defeating the Italians. There were also cases of dysentery and what we would now call "PTSD" and what they called "fear state" in 1941.

The enemy air superiority over Tobruk affected the men's attitudes, but they also lost some of the fear associated with air attack as they became accustomed to it. The base and harbor drew most of the air attacks. Everyone on both sides were surprised when a British bombers flew over and dropped a bomb at Hill 209. During June, the enemy conducted 134 bomb attacks and flew 39 reconnaissance missions.

Showing the amount of wishful-thinking that happened prior to Operation Battleaxe, supply shipments to Tobruk had been greatly reduced. Starting on 1 July, the supply deliveries restarted and they were greatly appreciated by the troops. They remarked on hows good the food was. More attention was paid to ensuring that the men had adequate Vitamin C when everyone received an orange and men were issued Vitamin C tablets on a regular basis. This is based on the account in Vol.III of the Australian Official History.

Moving forward in the "Salient" in late June and early July 1941

There was a strange business, where the 2/13th Battalion was preparing positions that would only be occupied by the 2/15th Battalion. There was in addition, a misunderstanding about time, where the 2/13th Battalion men expected that the 2/15th Battalion would move in on the night of 24 June (or maybe not). In addition, the 2/15th Battalion would build a new position "on the left" and eventually move into it. During the evening on 22 June, a mine exploded and wounded men from the 2/15th Battalion. The next move was to send out men at 10pm, with sappers to clear the path. They had brought wire and other things out, but then at 1am, men from the 2/13th Battalion found a booby trap and took casualties. That explosion caused the Germans to open fire with machine guns. The firing continued as the men tried to work on the positions. The 2/15th Battalion also took casualties during the night.

Although the 2/13th Battalion men had worked all night, the positions were still incomplete. They positions were not dug deep enough and they still needed to have wire installed. The result was that the work was continued the next night. The roles would change with the 2/13th Battalion only providing "guidance" while the 2/15th Battalion men would do the work of preparing the positions. This is where a misunderstanding occurred. The men of the 2/13th Battalion still thought that the men of the 2/15th Battalion would move into the new positions at 4am on 24 June 1941. The plan, was in fact, to move in on the following night.

as men worked, another booby trap exploded, killing and wounding more men. This was followed by enemy mortar fire, which caused more casualties. The misunderstanding came to light at 3am when the 2/13th Battalion learned that the 2/15th Battalion would not move into the new positions until the next night. During the night of 24-25 June, the 2/15th Battalion moved in. Men from the 2/17th Battalion arrived in the location. They were to allow the 2/13th Battalion to be withdrawn into reserve for their brigade.

There was some discontent with moving so far forward that they were close to enemy positions. The alternative would have been to have kept a larger distance from the enemy and then aggressively patrol in the "no-man's land". The purpose of the move forward was to be able to control Post R8, Post S8, and "Forbes' Mound". This is based on the account in Vol.III of the Australian Official History.