Interrogation of the German survivors to discover the fate of Sydney began on 25 November. This was initially hampered, as the sailors had been ordered to obfuscate the enemy by falsely answering all ...
HMAS Sydney HMAS Sydney was one of three "Modified Leander" or "Perth" class light cruisers of the RAN. Built for the Royal Navy, the cruiser was purchased by the Australian government to replace HMAS ...
Sydney was granted the battle honour "Kormoran 1941" in recognition of the damage done to Kormoran. This was one of only three honours awarded during the 20th century for the sinking of a single ship, ...
Following a short refit, Sydney sailed for Fremantle on 27 February, where she was assigned to escort and patrol tasks in the Indian Ocean. This primarily involved meeting convoys off the southern Aus ...
The ship was laid down by Swan Hunter Wigham Richardson at Wallsend-on-Tyne, England, on 8 July 1933 for the Royal Navy as HMS Phaeton, named after the Greek mythological figure. However, in 1934, th ...
In what proved to be a propaganda mis-step, Lord Haw-Haw derisively referred to the Garrison as "poor desert rats of Tobruk" during radio broadcasts. This was probably mostly due to two factors:The Au ...
The English-language propaganda radio programme Germany Calling was broadcast to audiences in Great Britain on the medium wave station Reichssender Hamburg and by shortwave to the United States. The p ...
There had always been opposition to Hitler in conservative circles and in the Army, the Schwarze Kapelle (Black Orchestra), but Hitler's dazzling successes in 1938–1941 had stifled it. However, after ...
Rommel determined to press the attack on Mersa Matruh, despite the heavy losses suffered in the battle at Gazala. He wanted to prevent the British from establishing a new defensive line, and felt the ...
Rommel was born on 15 November 1891 in Southern Germany at Heidenheim, 45 kilometres (28 mi) from Ulm, in the Kingdom of Württemberg, then part of the German Empire. He was baptised on 17 November 18 ...
An ancient Greek agricultural colony, Antipyrgos (Antipyrgus) was once on the site of modern Tobruk, and the ancient name is still occasionally in use. The name roughly meant "across from Pyrgos", ref ...
Morshead was born on 18 September 1889 in Ballarat, Victoria, the sixth of seven children of William Morshead, a gold miner who had emigrated from Cornwall via Canada, and his wife Mary Eliza Morshead ...
On 2 November, Rommel let Hitler know that: "The army's strength was so exhausted after its ten days of battle that it was not now capable of offering any effective opposition to the enemy's next brea ...
By 12 July 1942, after its success at the Battle of Gazala, the Panzer Army Africa (Panzerarmee Afrika), composed of German and Italian infantry and mechanised units under Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, ...
The Allied offensive was aimed at preventing Nazi Germany from using the Vichy French-controlled Syrian Republic and the French Lebanon as springboards for attacks on the Allied stronghold of Egypt, a ...
