The Siege of Tobruk: The 9th Australian Division - part 1

The Siege of Tobruk: The 9th Australian Division With Craig Tibbits Part of our Action in Africa Week    • Action in Africa Week   Also Part of our North Africa and the Mediterranean series    • North Africa and the Mediterranean   And our Australia and New Zealand at War series    • Australia and New Zealand in WWII   We abruptly lost the stream for some reason. But please join us for part 2 here https://youtube.com/live/-hpW2oBjVYM Between April and August 1941 around 14,000 Australian soldiers were besieged in Tobruk by German and Italian forces under the command of Rommel. In today's show we hear about the Australian 9th Division in the siege. It was vital for the Allies' defence of Egypt and the Suez Canal to hold the town with its harbour, as this forced the enemy to bring most of their supplies overland from the port of Tripoli, across 1500 km of desert, as well as diverting troops from their advance. Tobruk was subject to repeated ground assaults and almost constant shelling and bombing. The Nazi propagandist Lord Haw Haw (William Joyce) derided the tenacious defenders as 'rats', a term that the Australian soldiers embraced as an ironic compliment. Craig Tibbitts is a senior historian at the Australian War Memorial, Initially he worked in the Research Centre where he was Senior Curator of Official and Private Records. During much of that time he was also in charge of administration and research for the Memorial’s Roll of Honour. https://www.awm.gov.au/about/our-peop... Craig's previous appearance on WW2TV The Australian 9th Division in the Second Battle of El Alamein https://youtube.com/live/JMtcypNhpEY You can become a YouTube Member and support us here    / @ww2tv   You can become a Patron here   / ww2tv   Please click subscribe for updates also "like" the video - it really helps! Social Media links -   / ww2tv     / ww2tv     / ww2tv   WW2TV Merchandise https://ww2tv.creator-spring.com/ WW2TV Bookshop - where you can purchase copies of books featured in my YouTube shows. Any book listed here comes with the personal recommendation of Paul Woodadge, the host of WW2TV. For full disclosure, if you do buy a book through a link from this page WW2TV will earn a commission. UK - https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/WW2TV USA - https://bookshop.org/shop/WW2TV Patreon Brigadiers: Susan Yu, David Keahey and Tom Mullen Become a WW2TV Brigadier and become part of this Hall of Fame   / ww2tv