(June 11, 2021) This week, 80 years ago, Allied forces, commanded by Gen. Sir Noel Beresford-Peirse, reluctantly, and under pressure from London, launched âOperation Battleaxe.â
The Allied forces, now designated XIII Corps, included the British 7th Armored Division, commanded by Maj.-Gen. Michael OâMoore Creagh; the 4th Indian Division, commanded by Maj.-Gen. Frank Messervy; and the 22nd Guards Brigade, commanded by Brig.-Gen. Ian D. Erskine.
It was a feeble attempt at relieving the siege of Tobruk, which today has a population of 120,000, and is approximately 90 miles west of the Egyptian border, 270 miles east of Benghazi, 260 miles east of Agedabia and 630 miles east of the Libyan capital of Tripoli.
Yes, Spanish Volunteers Did Fight Alongside Hitler Against Stalin
The fascists may have won the Spanish Civil War, but they were not eager to commit their country completely to the Axis cause.
Key point: The war between two totalitarian powers on the Eastern front was brutal and ugly. Here is how the Spanish Blue Division helped the Nazis in their doomed quest for victory.
The Russian winter of 1941-1942 hit with terrible ferocity. Battling the deadly, numbing cold as well as the massive numbers of Red Army troops were soldiers from sunny Spain. Yet the men, who were more accustomed to sipping sangria on a Mediterranean beach than trying to survive in a white, sub-zero arctic hell, were giving as good as they got. They were the men volunteers all of the Division Azul, or Blue Division, led by 45-year-old Maj. Gen. Agustin Muñoz-Grandes, himself one of the heroes of the Spanish Civil War.