Customer Reviews

Massacre at Tobruk: The Story of Operation Agreement

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Greeks and Romans built it, and King Idris once ruled there. Texas Oilman Nelson Hunt and Benito Mussolini tried to exploit it. Most importantly, Winston Churchill wanted to take it away from Rommel. They all coveted North Africa's only deep-water seaport -- Tobruk. On September 13, 1942, exactly 66 years ago today, while the New York Yankees were cinching the pennant and the Japanese stormed Edson's Ridge on Guadalcanal, Churchill launched his infamous raid on Tobruk -- Operation Agreement.

Barely a month after 4132 out of 6000 men became casualties assaulting the German occupied French seaport of Dieppe, the ground and amphibious attacks on Tobruk by British, Rhodesian, and New Zealand forces were easily crushed, resulting in three Royal Navy ships and several hundred soldiers and Marines lost. Even the Royal Navy's communications were put in great jepardy when resourceful Italian divers recovered top-secret code books from the sunken destroyer HMS Sikh.

Veteran historian and military author, Peter C. Smith's recently reprinted book, "Massacre At Tobruk: The British Assault On Rommel, 1942" sheds light on this little known action in World War II's North African campaign. Mr. Smith does a credible job of analyzing Operation Agreements in a crisp, well-paced narrative. His book is peppered with interesting vignettes of the battle action.

Mr. Smith explains the objective of Operation Agreement was to destroy installations and shipping at Tobruk at the same time relieving the pressure Rommel had put on the Eighth Army near El Alamein. This complex combined arms operation was doomed by a multi-pronged attack with the Long Range Desert Group striking from the desert, and the destroyers HMS Sikh and HMS Zulu joining coastal forces landing craft in transporting Royal Marines and army units to shore.

As Mr. Smith points out, "Almost all the same blunders and under-estimation of the enemy were made at Dieppe as were made a month later in Tobruk. Just about the only lesson drawn from Operation Agreement's ghastly statistics was that muddling through just didn't work, but the British were not a nation to take such lessons to heart."

During the night attack, few troops reached shore but HMS Sikh was soon hit by shore batteries, and sank early the next morning. It goes without saying, the land attack failed. Heavy attacks by German and Italian aircraft sank the anti-aircraft cruiser HMS Coventry and destroyer Zulu during the Royal Navy's withdrawal.

"The repluse of the sea-borne landings", says the author, "by the Italian coast defense gunners and the makeshift army of cooks and clerks, the gallantry of the San Marco Marines, the false claim of the destruction of the Zulu, all have been mixed up into a cocktail of fact, fantasy, and fiction all served to the world as a great Italian victory..."

About 400 Marines, 180 Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and engineers made up the amphibious forces with about 150 SAS attacking from the desert. Most of the Royal Marines' 300 casualties were from drowning when their rickety assault boats quickly sank. Army forces lost 160 men. Royal Navy losses were 280 men, the cruiser HMS Coventry, two destroyers, HMS Sikh and HMS Zulu, two motor launches, four motor torpedo boats and several small watercraft.

As Mr. Smith's book makes clear, much of the failure of Operation Agreement must lie with poor planning and a defective command structure. Mr. Smith saved much of his bile for Admiral Harwood, who ultimately shouldered much of the responsibility for the misfortune.

Mr. Smith, also the author of War in the Aegean: The Campaign for the Eastern Mediterranean in World War II (Stackpole Military History Series), argues that, "The particular tragedy of the raid on Tobruk is that, even had the operation succeeded, it was hardly worth the effort of such a risk." This was the last time the Italians would be able to brag of a victory in the North African campaign.

"Massacre At Tobruk: The British Assault On Rommel, 1942", a Stackpole Military History Series book, contains 34 photographs and 3 maps. For those who truly care about the North African campaign, Mr. Smith's book is essential reading.

"Massacre at Tobruk", by author Peter C. Smith, tells the story of the British combined forces raid on Tobruk in September 1942. The raid, largely pushed forward at the insistence of Winston Churchill, was poorly planned and generally poorly executed (but the actual soldiers and sailor involved displayed a tremendous amount of courage!), and was largely a disaster, albeit on a relatively small scale.

After the unexpected fall of Tobruk to the Germans/Italians in June 1942, the road to Egypt was opened to Rommel's Panzer Army Afrika. Churchill was shocked that Tobruk fell, and pressed the commanders in the Mediterranean to try to block Tobruk and Benghazi harbors, and when that proved impractial, to raid and destroy them as much as possible so as to deny their use to the Axis, almost regardless of the cost. Like many of Churchill's ideas, they were theoretically sound on the surface, but in reality, very impractical. However, he was able to browbeat his commanders into attempting it. While the raid on Benghazi was converted to a raid from the desert only, the raid against Tobruk involved the Long Range Desert Group, the SAS, the Royal Air Force, the Royal Army, the Royal Marines, and the Royal Navy ... indeed a combined arms effort.

The raid against Benghazi had only mixed results, but the raid against Tobruk was, if not actually a massacre as per the title of the book, then a solid thrashing. The author points out that while there were many things that contributed to the British defeat, such as improper planning, insufficient training, and an inadequate number of barely seaworth landing boats, the biggest factor was that the RAF bombed Tobruk for several hours before the seaborne portion of the raid commenced. Far from crippling the defenders, this air raid ensured that the German and Italian defenders were awake and alert. Oddly enough, a month earlier the Canadians were badly repulsed at Dieppe, and one of the factors for their defeat was that the RAF had bombed there, too, shortly before the Canadian landings. This lesson unfortunately didn't carry over to Operation Agreement, the code name for this raid on Tobruk.

All in all, the British lost two destroyers, one cruiser, numerous motor torpedo boats (MTBs) and small landing craft, and about 600 men killed, wounded, or captured. While this was a severe toll based on the number of men involved, it was only a relative drop in the bucket against the larger picture of the war. The sadly ironic thing, though, is that according to the author, even if the raid had succeeded to the degree it's planners hoped, it would have only cost the Germans/Italians about 3 days worth of supplies before they would have had the harbor running again. I think the reason this raid isn't better known in the English speaking world is because it was a failure that had no measurable impact on the desert campaign, except perhaps to give the Italians their last victory in the war.

The book is primarily written from the British perspective, with about 95 percent of the anecdotes from the British side. There are a few anecdotes from the German side, as well as some analysis from their point of view, but this is mostly a British tale. That's not a problem, mind you, I just point it out as part of this review. There are a good many pictures in the book, from both sides, and they add to the narritive.

I do have a couple of nits. First, the writing can be a bit on the dry side. It won't put you to sleep, but some sections are relatively hard slogging. And second, I'm fairly tolerant of typos, but there seem to be a lot more in this book than the norm, mostly missing prepositions or wrong word choices. Again, these are just nits and shouldn't sway you against this book which I recommend.

As an aside, I'm glad that Stackpole books has taken the effort and financial risk to re-publish so many good books, such as this one, that have long been out of print that provide a lot of information on some of the lesser known actions of World War II.