The Long Hard Road to Victory
Rifles in the Desert War 1941 in North Africa
Battalions of the Kings Royal Rifle Corps and the Rifle Brigade fought alongside each other in the North African desert campaign. Initially their opponents were the Italians whose forces, by 1941, had been all but beaten forcing Hitler to send German troops led by Erwin Rommel – one of the finest generals of the war – to North Africa to restore the situation.
In March 1941, Rommel attacked the Allies in Libya and by May 1941, they had been pushed back into Egypt; only Tobruk held out against the “Desert Fox”. In June 1941, General Wavell started “Operation Battleaxe” to help Tobruk. It failed as the Allied force was too small to defeat the Afrika Korps. Churchill sacked Wavell and replaced him with General Claude Auchinleck. He planned an attack on Rommel for November 1941 with the same aspiration of helping Tobruk. The attack succeeded and Rommel was forced into a retreat.
Dr Niall Barr FRHistS is a Reader in Military History at the Defence Studies Department, based at the Joint Services Command and Staff College. Educated at the University of St Andrews, he has previously taught at St Andrews and the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. He joined the Staff College in 2000, where he teaches on a wide range of military courses, including the Higher Command and Staff Course. His main research interest concerns the fighting methods of the British Army in the Twentieth Century.
Talk by Doctor Niall Barr 20th September 2016.
A Talk at The Royal Green Jackets Museum
Credited to Doctor Niall Barr
Sourced from You Tube from William Wright.