page_title: Battle of Bir Hakeim
section_title: Panzerarmee Afrika
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Bir Hakeim / Background / Panzerarmee Afrika
caption_attribution_description: GIF-Animation des Verlaufs des Unternehmens Theseus (26. Mai bis 16. Juni 1942)
context_page_description: The Battle of Bir Hakeim took place at Bir Hakeim, an oasis in the Libyan desert south and west of Tobruk, during the Battle of Gazala. The 1st Free French Brigade defended the position from 26 May – 11 June against much larger Axis forces of Panzerarmee Afrika. The Panzerarmee captured Tobruk ten days later but the delay imposed on the Axis offensive by the defence of the fortress influenced the cancellation of Operation Herkules, the plan for an Axis invasion of Malta. Rommel continued to advance and invaded Egypt, slowed by British delaying actions until the First Battle of El Alamein in July, where the Axis advance was stopped. Both sides used the battle for propaganda, Winston Churchill renamed the Free French as the Fighting French and Hitler called the French the second best fighters after the Germans.
context_section_description: At the meeting of Axis leaders at Berchtesgaden on 1 May, it was agreed that Rommel should attack at the end of the month to capture Tobruk. The Panzerarmee was to pause at the Egyptian border, while the Axis captured Malta in Operation Herkules and then Rommel was to invade Egypt. The Panzerarmee had finished converting to the up-armoured Panzer III Ausf. H and had received nineteen Panzer III Ausf. J (Mark III Specials), with long-barrelled 50 mm KwK 39 guns. Four Panzer IV Ausf. G (Mark IV Specials) with long-barrelled 7.5 cm KwK 40 guns had also arrived. The Abwehr (German military intelligence) had broken some British military codes and in late 1941 penetrated Black, the code used by Bonner Fellers, a US military attaché. The British divulged much tactical information to Fellers, who unwittingly reported it to the Axis as well as Washington.
  Air attacks by the Luftwaffe and Regia Aeronautica on Malta reduced its offensive capacity and supply convoys from Italy reached the Axis forces in Africa with fewer losses. Until May, Axis monthly deliveries to Libya averaged 60,963 tonnes (60,000 long tons), fewer than a smaller Axis force received from June–October 1941 but sufficient for an offensive. The 1,448 km (900 mi) advance to Gazala succeeded because the port of Benghazi was open, reducing the transport distance for about 33 percent of the supplies of the Panzerarmee to 451 km (280 mi). The capture of Malta would not alter the constraints of port capacity and distance; protecting convoys and the use of a large port close to the front would still be necessary.
  Unternehmen Venezia (Operation Venice), the Axis plan of attack, was for tanks to make a flanking advance around the Bir Hakeim box at the southern extremity of the Gazala line. On the left side of the manoeuvre, the Italian 132nd Armoured Division Ariete would neutralise the Bir Hakeim box. Further south, the 21st Panzer Division and 15th Panzer Division would advance through the desert further south, moving east, then turning north behind the Gazala line to destroy the British armour and cut off the infantry divisions in the line. The most southerly part of the attacking formation, a kampfgruppe (battle group) of the 90th Leichtes Afrika Division (Generalmajor Ulrich Kleemann) was to advance to El Adem south of Tobruk, cut the supply routes from the port to the Gazala line and hold British troops at Tobruk by a ruse; aircraft-engines mounted on trucks were to raise dust, simulating a big armoured force.
  The rest of the Italian XX Motorised Corps, the 101st Motorized Division Trieste, would open a gap in the minefield north of Bir Hakeim, near the Sidi Muftah box, to create a supply route to the panzers. Rommel anticipated that having dealt with the British tanks, he would have captured El Adem, Ed Duda and Sidi Rezegh by nightfall and later the Knightsbridge defensive box, about 40 km (25 mi) north-east of Bir Hakeim. The Axis tanks would be in a position next day to thrust westwards against the Eighth Army defensive boxes between Gazala and Alem Hamza, meeting the eastwards attack by the Italian X and XXI corps. By late May, the Axis forces comprised 90,000 men, 560 tanks and 542 aircraft.
caption: Map of the Gazala line and Operation Venice, May–June, 1942