A new situation near Tobruk from 6 December 1941 onwards

The German Africa Corps was able to successfully disengage from the British and start the drive back to Gazala. The Germans did not expect that the disengagement would happen incident, but it did proceed smoothly. During the afternoon of 7 December 1941 (a pivotal date), General Ritchie ordered XIII Corps to push towards El Adem, regardless of what XXX Corps did. From the day before, early in the day, armored cars drove out to clear the Bardia Road road block. British infantry moved into the abandoned strong points Freddie and Walter. Patrols were sent out to the southeast to the vicinity of Bu Amud. General Scobie was getting anxious about the lack of activity and information. He felt like the enemy was escaping when they could be pursuing them.
During the afternoon on 6 December, men of the King's Dragoon Guards and the 11th Hussars met near Ed Duda. There was also a meeting between Major Loder-Symonds and Brigadier Jock Campbell, the 7th Support Group commander. Major Loder-Symonds' battery coordinate firing with the "support group column". A jock column, Wilson column made contact with the New Zealand dressing station that lay near Point 175. The dressing station had come under control of the enemy forces and only now was freed. After darkness fell, a 2nd South African Division column arrived from Menastir by driving along the coastal road.
A directove decreed tjat tje 70th Division and the 2nd South African Division were responsible for collecting enemy stragglers. The area that they would be working was from the coast to the desert betweeen Bardia and Tobruk. The 70th Division would be working from Gambut west while the South Africans would work Gambut to the east.During the morning of 7 December, General Scobie dispatched a column to search the area between Tobruk and Gambut. They returned to Tobruk by 6pm. They had seen a lot and had taken some fifty prisoners. Other small groups were also sent out to look for salvageable equipement and anything else that would be useful. One thing that was particularly interesting was that they had found the gun that they had called "Bardia Bill". The gun was intact and they had bagged a German master gunner. The gunner had wanted to stay with his gun. XIII Corps found that XXX Corps did not intend to push to El Adem, so the decision was made to use 70th Division to carry out the operation.
Back on the night of 5 to 6 December, the 2/13th Battalion had patrols out. They found that there was still enemy forces in Bir el Azazi. Early on 6 December, they had seen enemy movements behind the strong point. They had planned to attack that night, with tanks, even. The operation was canceled before anything happened. British artillery still fired into the rear of BIr el Azizi. They enemy responded by firing on the 2/13th Posotions. That was what they usually expected from the enemy. Another order came through requiring an attack that night. They were somewhat wary, because they had a bad history of trying to attack strong point Plonk (apparently at this location). The start line was defined ontime, but nothing else happened smoothly. The tranportation arrive late and there was not enough of it. Infantry and tanks were late arriving. At 9pm, despite that, artillery and machine guns opened fire. The tanks still were not there, so thet attack was postponed twice. A series of problems caused the attack to not happen. By midday the next day,, a patrol found that the enemy had pulled out from the strong point. That saved them from having to attack. This is based on the account in Vol.III of the Australian Official History.