Inferno - Max Hastings [90]
At a field hospital, he recovered consciousness after an operation to hear falling bombs and the terrific din of Tobruk’s antiaircraft guns. “There were so many wounded that the floor was covered with patients on stretchers, the reek of anaesthetic filled the air and people were groaning or shouting in delirium as they died. The heat and stuffiness were quite appalling. My right leg was in plaster to the hip, the other was smothered in dried blood. There were no sheets and the blankets scratched.”
Both sides suffered heavy tank losses in confused fighting around “the Cauldron” in the centre of the British line, but by 30 May the Germans had gained a decisive advantage. The British were forced into headlong retreat. A South African and Indian force was left to defend Tobruk, while the remainder of the Eighth Army fell back into Egypt. Rommel bypassed Tobruk, then on 20 June turned and assaulted its defences from the rear, where the line was weakest, and soon broke through. The South African commander, Maj. Gen. Hendrik Klopper, surrendered the next morning. By nightfall on 21 June, all resistance had ended. More than 30,000 prisoners fell into Axis hands. Only a few units made good their escape to rejoin the Eighth Army.
Vittorio Vallicella was among the first Axis troops to reach the port of Tobruk. “What a shock to find there hundreds of Senegalese [French colonial troops] who, at the sight of our little band, leap to their feet raising their hands in token of surrender,” he wrote in his diary. “How extraordinary that they should do this to poorly armed men far fewer than themselves. With surprise but also respect, we gaze fascinated at these poor black soldiers who serve rich England, who have come from afar to take part in a war, when perhaps they don’t even know for whom or for what they are fighting.” Exploring the town, the Italians were astonished by the comfort of the English quarters, with their showers, every officer’s bed with its mosquito net, and a surfeit of supplies. They delighted in the discovery of luxuries: tinned plums and boxes of what Vallicella at first took for dried grass. His sergeant explained that this was tea, a real treat. Some Arabs found plundering the dead were shot. Several men killed themselves by wandering into minefields. The Germans quickly placed guards on all the British food dumps, which the Italians interpreted as a slight on themselves: “Even here our allies want to lord it over us.” For a brief period, victory at Tobruk raised Italian as well as German morale. “We hope this nightmare is at an end,” wrote Vallicella. “We have only one thought: Alexandria, Cairo, the Nile, pyramids, palm trees and women.”
During early-summer operations, the Germans had suffered just 3,360 casualties, the British 50,000—most of these taken prisoner. Much of Auchinleck’s armoured force had been destroyed. Churchill, in Washington to meet Roosevelt, was shocked and humiliated. The end of June 1942 found the British occupying a line at El Alamein, back inside Egypt. One of Auchinleck’s soldiers wrote: “The order came to us, ‘Last round, last man.’ This was chilling. It was curious to see that this legendary phrase of heroic finality could still be used. Presumably it was intended to instil a steely resolve … But being interpreted, it meant that there was no hope for Tobruk and that we were being left to our fate—the very reverse of morale building … We were a downcast, defeated lot.” Britain’s fortunes in the Middle East, and the global prestige of its army, had reached their lowest ebb. Churchill’s attempt to exploit Africa as a battlefield against the Axis had thus far served only to make Rommel a hero, and grievously to injure the morale and self-respect of the British people