Sidi Rezegh battles

Sidi Rezegh battles, fought during the Western Desert campaigns as part of the British and Commonwealth Eighth Army's offensive in November 1941 (CRUSADER).

The CRUSADER plan envisaged an inland thrust by Eighth Army's armoured corps through Rommel's forces besieging Tobruk while the infantry corps advanced along the coast. These thrusts would then link up with a break-out by the Tobruk garrison, and the Allied forces would then sweep westwards across eastern Libya.

Sidi Rezegh, a ridge some 32 km. (20 mi.) south-east of Tobruk, lay between this British thrust and the besieged port. Rommel, who at first thought CRUSADER was only a raid, ordered the Afrika Korps to the area. As the Tobruk garrison began its break-out towards Sidi Rezegh the ridge was captured, but when 7th Armoured Brigade tried to advance beyond it Afrika Korps units counter-attacked, retook the ridge, and almost destroyed the brigade.

With the British armour reinforced by 1st South African Division the two sides now fought for possession of the ridge. The Afrika Korps and the Italian Ariete Armoured Division scattered and partly destroyed South African supply columns and virtually annihilated a South African infantry brigade. The battle became known as Totensonntag (Sunday of the Dead) as it took place on the last Sunday of the ecclesiastical year, the day when German Protestants pray for the souls of the departed. That same day, 23 November, the British Eighth Army commander, Lt-General Cunningham, alarmed by his losses, requested the presence of his C-in-C, General Auchinleck. Convinced by Totensonntag that CRUSADER had failed, Cunningham wanted to withdraw. Auchinleck arrived but ordered the offensive to continue, and on 26 November replaced Cunningham with Maj-General Neil Ritchie.

Having decisively won the battle on Totensonntag, Rommel now decided to relieve his posts at Bardia and Halfaya Pass, which had become isolated by the British advance. But while he moved eastwards—his advance is sometimes known as his ‘dash for the wire’ as the Egyptian frontier was marked by a wire fence—the New Zealand Division retook Sidi Rezegh in one of the hardest, and bloodiest, battles it ever fought. Then, on 26 November, other British units linked up at Ed Duda with those attacking out of Tobruk.

Rommel's lightning thrust failed to achieve its objective and his return put the New Zealanders, already besieged at Sidi Rezegh, under increasing pressure, which 1st South African Brigade and British armour could do nothing to relieve. By 1 December Sidi Rezegh was back in Axis hands, the Tobruk corridor had been cut, and the New Zealand Division badly mauled. This second victory spurred Rommel to try advancing eastwards again, but his casualty figures, increasing Allied pressure, and particularly the paucity of his supplies, soon forced him to withdraw.

Casualty figures for CRUSADER were high on both sides. Out of 118,000 Allied troops taking part, British and Commonwealth losses amounted to 17,700, or 15%. The Axis forces, which had numbered 119,000, lost 24,500, or 20%, and another 13,800 became prisoners-of-war when Rommel's frontier posts at Bardia and Halfaya Pass surrendered the following January.