Word: tobruk
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Longest in history: Troy, which, according to none-too-reliable Correspondent Homer, fell to the Greeks after nine years. Longest other sieges of World War II: Tobruk, 252 days; Sevastopol, 230 days...
Montgomery swept past the white, empty shells of Tobruk's ruined houses. He rumbled through Ain el-Gazála, Dérna. He roared on past El Gubba, where the Silesian father in a flowing beard, who had clung to his parish through five occupations, intoned: "Religion is above wars...
Ahead of him, behind him, was his army. They were Englishmen, Irishmen and Scots who had fought and been beaten in France; the Australian 9th Division (Morshead's Marines), which had held Tobruk in an eight-month siege; the South African 1st Division, whose countrymen had surrendered Tobruk after one devastating day; New Zealanders who had fought and fled from Greece and Crete. It was a purposeful army behind an impassioned, man who was avenging Dunkirk (where he had led the 3rd Division) and all of Britain's North African defeats...
...Wilfrid Lindsell's service of supply had poured westward in a vast caravan. Cannonading was still audible when the white-gloved soldier-policemen waved them along the Road. For days an almost solid line of vehicles packed the highway-perhaps 100,000 motor vehicles-from El Alamein to Tobruk. (Comparable distance: New York to Buffalo...
Laborers worked night & day on the stone and macadam highway along the coast. A railroad to Tobruk carried some of the load after engineers restored it. Ships edged along the shore. Rush orders had to be carried by giant transport planes. Supply trucks, given priority, frequently moved ahead of all but the very advanced troops. One story was told of a bakery unit dashing into Matrûh, where a German officer stepped forth and growled: "You arrived too soon...