| Battle of Gazala | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War | |||||||||
 Panzer III and Rommel's command vehicle during the Battle of Gazala. | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Italy Germany |
 United Kingdom India South Africa Free France United States[a] | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
|
Ettore Bastico Erwin Rommel Walter Nehring Ludwig Crüwell[b] Ettore Baldassarre Enea Navarini Benvenuto Gioda |
Claude Auchinleck Neil Ritchie William Gott Charles Norrie | ||||||||
| Units involved | |||||||||
| Panzerarmee Afrika/Gruppo Corazzato Africa | Eighth Army | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
|
90,000 men (60,000 Italian, 30,000 German) 560 tanks (228 Italian) 542 aircraft |
110,000 men 843 tanks 604 aircraft | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
|
German: 3,360 men (26 May – 24 June)[3][c] 400 armoured vehicles damaged or destroyed Italian: 3,000 men 125 tanks 44 armoured cars 39 guns 74 anti-tank guns 450 motor vehicles |
50,000[3] killed, wounded or captured (incl. c. 33,000 prisoners at Tobruk)[d] 1,188 armoured vehicles damaged or destroyed | ||||||||
| Many damaged tanks were returned to action by both sides. | |||||||||
The Battle of Gazala, also the Gazala Offensive (Italian: Battaglia di Ain el-Gazala) was fought near the village of Gazala during the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War, west of the port of Tobruk in Libya, from 26 May to 21 June 1942. Axis troops of the Panzerarmee Afrika (Generaloberst Erwin Rommel) consisting of German and Italian units fought the British Eighth Army (General Sir Claude Auchinleck, also Commander-in-Chief Middle East) composed mainly of British Commonwealth, Indian and Free French troops.
The Axis troops made a decoy attack in the north as the main attack moved round the southern flank of the Gazala position. Unexpected resistance at the south end of the line around the Bir Hakeim box by the Free French garrison left Panzerarmee Afrika with a long and vulnerable supply route around the Gazala Line. Rommel retired to a defensive position backing onto Allied minefields (the Cauldron), forming a base in the midst of the British defences. Italian engineers lifted mines from the west side of the minefields to create a supply route through to the Axis side.
Operation Aberdeen, an attack by the Eighth Army to finish off the Panzerarmee, was poorly co-ordinated and defeated in detail; many British tanks were lost and the Panzerarmee regained the initiative. The Eighth Army withdrew from the Gazala Line and the Axis troops overran Tobruk in a day. Rommel pursued the Eighth Army into Egypt and forced it out of several defensive positions. The Battle of Gazala is considered the greatest victory of Rommel's career.
As both sides neared exhaustion, the Eighth Army checked the Axis advance at the First Battle of El Alamein. To support the Axis advance into Egypt, the planned attack on Malta (Operation Herkules) was postponed. The British were able to revive Malta as a base for attacks on Axis convoys to Libya, greatly complicating Axis supply difficulties at El Alamein.
- ^ Yeide 2006, p. 52.
- ^ Time 1942.
- ^ a b c d Playfair 2004a, p. 274.
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