the British had been fighting German and Italian armies in the Western Desert of Egypt and Libya for over a year. In countering an Italian offensive in 1940, the British had at first enjoyed great success. In 1941, however, when German forces entered the theater in support of their Italian ally, the British suffered severe reversals, eventually losing nearly all their hard-won gains in North Africa.

Even though the United States had not yet entered the war as an active combatant, by the time General Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, commander of the German Army's Afrika Corps, began his offensive against the British Eighth Army in Libya in March 1941, the American and British air chiefs were already discussing American support for the British Eighth Army. Rommel's rapid and unexpected success in the Libyan desert forced British and American staff officers in London to accelerate their planning. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his advisers also agreed that the British might need American support in the Middle East. Overall theater responsibility would continue to be British, but the President recognized that a British collapse in Egypt would have far-reaching implications and approved contingency measures to prepare for American support to the theater at a future date.

The campaign which established this pattern began in September 1940 when an Italian army under the command of Marshal Rodolfo Graziani attacked the lightly held British frontier outposts in Egypt, drove them back, and established fortified defensive positions along the coastal highway well inside Egypt. In November the British launched a counteroffensive that by mid-December had cleared Egypt of all Italian units. By February 1941 Cyrenaica was in British hands, but their hold was tenuous. British forces in Egypt and Libya were short of ground transport, possessed badly outdated air and ground equipment, and had to make do with very little shipping.

In early 1941 Germany joined forces with Italy and began offensive operations throughout much of the Mediterranean. Air attacks from Luftwaffe units that had deployed to the Mediterranean in January reduced the British use of the sea. Rommel arrived in Africa during February and by March was ready to launch a campaign against the British line in Libya. In April the Germans then invaded and conquered Greece, and in May they added Crete to their Mediterranean holdings. In a desperate attempt to hold Greece and Crete, the British had diverted extensive forces from Africa, thereby significantly reducing their already limited capabilities in the Western Desert.

By the end of May the Axis offensive had driven the British back into Egypt, although they did manage to hold on to the port of Tobruk

By November the British Eighth Army, now armed with American tanks, was once again ready to take the offensive in the Western Desert. Its attack began on 18 November, and nine days later elements of the Eighth Army relieved the garrison which had held Tobruk since the British withdrawal in May. During the first week in December, German and Italian forces finally began withdrawing under British pressure, eventually occupying positions in El Agheila in western Libya. Although the ground forces on both sides settled down in defensive positions, each began preparations to resume the offensive. Rommel was ready first. On 21 January 1942, he opened his second offensive in the Western Desert, moving east in a series of rapid advances, broken only by periods of relative inactivity while resupplying from the coastal ports. Logistics thus dictated the pace of the Axis offensive, and every mile it moved east lengthened a tenuous supply line. But the German and Italian logistics difficulties were not severe enough to halt the attack. When the Egypt-Libya Campaign opened for the United States, the British Eighth Army was retreating out of Libya toward Egypt in yet another eastbound lap of the Benghazi Handicap.

Tobruk offers visits to Rommel’s headquarters and the Allied and German war cemeteries.