Tobruk - Easter 1941 - ...first to quail...went agley...

Chapter 4 – At Bay – The Easter Battle

The battle had reached its crisis. The penetration had not yet been contained, but the assault had been turned. To "A/E" Battery must go the main credit. For 45 minutes they had contested the seemingly relentless enemy advance, standing to their guns and proving themselves more steadfast than their enemy; the German tank crews were first to quail.

The prime causes of failure were the Germans' and Rommel's over-confidence and their under-estimation of the strength of the defence. A battle plan based on the false assumption, drawn from European experience, that opposition would collapse when the tanks broke through the perimeter went agley when that did not occur. Both senior and junior commanders lost their nerve, the force its cohesion.

But the victory belonged in the main to the gunners who had fought it out with the German tanks, to the Bren gunners and machine-gunners in the posts who had not been intimidated or subdued and to the patrolmen whose bayonet charges had dislodged the enemy infantry before they could consolidate. One may accept the summing up by the diarist of "B/O" Battery: The two outstanding features of the battle were:

(i) "A/E"Battery's tank shoot, which finally stopped the tanks.

(ii) The infantry in "D"Company remaining in their positions completely unperturbed by the tanks and then attacking the ensuing infantry, together with an excellent counter-attack by "B" Company.