Word: tobruk
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Hitler to send reinforcements to the region in February 1941. The brilliant Erwin Rommel, who had helped lead German forces in the lightning conquest of France in 1940, quickly turned back the Allied advance in Libya and in April besieged an Australian division in the strategic seaside fortress of Tobruk as troops from Britain and New Zealand retreated to Egypt. Rommel called Tobruk's defenders nothing but rabble and promised that the panzers of his fabled Afrika Korps would soon be parked by the Suez Canal...
...rats of Tobruk," as the Australians called themselves, would hold out against Rommel for 242 days. Attack after attack failed to dislodge them. In the first week of December, just as the Pacific war began, an Allied thrust threatened to encircle Rommel's forces. To avoid falling into a trap, the Germans withdrew from Tobruk. In the last confusing battle over the fortress, 38,000 Axis soldiers were killed; the Allies lost...
...Desert Fox," however, was far from finished. Orchestrating an intricate withdrawal, he then prepared for a counterattack. Hitler sent him an entire air corps, detached from the Russian front. The two divisions of the Afrika Korps were resupplied and refreshed, and in June 1942 Rommel captured Tobruk -- earning from the Fuhrer the rank of field marshal. Egypt, Suez and the oil of the Middle East now seemed within his grasp. Hitler, warned by more cautious advisers to be wary about proceeding toward Cairo, nonetheless ordered that operations "be continued until the British forces are completely annihilated . . . The goddess of fortune...