FInal relief of the 9th Australian Division in October 1941

The relief of Australian units by British units was well-planned. Relief convoys used one minelayer and three destroyers. The final relief started on 12-13 October 1941. An arriving unit was generally given a day before the unit that was being replaced left Tobruk. That was to give the newly arrived men time for a transition. Also, that allowed for no reduction in strength defending the fortress of Tobruk.Convoys generally brought in one thousand men and removed slightly less than that number. Men of the 26th Brigade Group were the first to leave.
General Scobie became the new fortress commander, taking over from General Morshead. General  Scobie arrived at Tobruk on the night of 20-21 October. General Morshead introduced General Scobie at all the brigade headquarters. One of the first changes was that the division reserve was moved from the 26th Australian Brigade to the 23rd British Brigade. The next move was for the 23rd Brigade to replace the 20th Australian Brigade in the south of Tobruk. General Scobie formally took over as commander at 5pm on 22 October. General Morshead then bade farewell to units that were to stay, and then ate dinner with the naval staff. He then left Tobruk on HMS Endeavor. On the 22nd, more of the 20th Australian Brigade was removed from Tobruk. The 23rd British Brigade assumed the duty of protecting the Southern Sector on 23 October from the 20th Australian Brigade. The Australians moved into division reserve. A feature of the relief process is that the Australian units passed all their equipment to the arriving units. On the night of 24-25 October, the 14th British Brigade took command of the division reserve. Before night fell, an air attack by dive bombers hit the harbor.
During the relief process the enemy had fired artillery against the harbor. There was still no indication that the enemy realized that the relief was proceeding. One hazard that was not immediately recognized was that German submarines had arrived in the Mediterranean Sea from the Atlantic. The first ships sunk were "A-Lighters". The submarines were assigned to attack ships supplying Tobruk.
The British gunboat Gnat was able to hit the guns that fired on the harbor at Tobruk. The relief convoy cruiser escorts, the Ajax, Hobart, and Galatea were alsos able to fire at the guns. The Gnat was torpedoed on 21 October. The ship was not sunk, but was stopped. The destroyer Griffin was able to tow the Gnat to Alexandria. One final mishap was that the minelayer Latona was bombed and eventually sunk. That ended the Australian relief, because they had reached the end of the moonless period. The remaining Australians were stuck at Tobruk. This is based on the account in Vol.III of the Australian Official History.