TOBRUK THE STORY OF A SIEGE HECKSTALL-SMITH, ANTHONY IN SOUTH AFRICA

  Anthony Blond, London, 1959. Hard Cover. Book Condition: Good. Dust Jacket Condition: poor, edge-chipped, loss at head and foot of spine and bottom corners. Second Impression. Dust jacket price clipped, some closed chips. Black cloth with gilt titling on spine. Map end papers. Photographs on plates. 255 pages clean and tight. Size: 8vo. The Siege of Tobruk lasted longer than the Siege of Mafeking. This fly-blown, dust-ridden Lybian port was the only harbour between Bengazi and Alexandria and became crucial as the only stumbling-block preventing Rommel's sweep forward to the Nile. The centre of a shuttlecock war Tobruk was captured by Wavell in 1940, became a beleaguered fortress for 242 days until its garrison was relieved in November 1941 by Auchinleck. Churchill and his War Cabinet in Whitehall with a fine sense of unreality ordered that " Tobruk must be held to the death." It was. The Australians under Major General Morshead fought like tigers, but a year later another garrison of 30,000 men in Tobruk commanded by Major General Klopper surrendered to Rommel in twenty-four hours. Why? There were rumours of high-ranking officers on Klopper's staff surrendering to Rommel blind drunk, of native African troops pillaging the rum stores and being shot out of hand by their captors, and of Company Commanders deserting their men... a Court of Enquiry was held in Cairo but its findings remain secret. Now, after seventeen years, Anthony Heckstall-Smith who was himself a Flotilla Officer of the "A" Lighters which victualled the garrison at fantastic cost in men and ships, has sifted evidence from officers of all units involved-Australian, South African, German and British-in order to write a controversial and thrilling story of men in battle.