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Operation Compass
Operation Compass After the unsuccessful attempt by the Italians to drive the Allied forces out of Mersa Matruh on the 31st October 1940, the Italian invasion into British-occupied Egypt came to a halt. Archibald Wavell in command of British Troops in Egypt ordered Lieutenant General Henry Wilson to begin planning a limited operation to push the Italians back into Libya. The offensive was codenamed Operation Compass.
The operation plan was guarded with great secrecy; as late as 25th/26th November when a rehearsal was held, only a small number of officers knew that the training grounds were modelled after the Italian held towns of Nibeiwa and the Tummars. The plan was to dispatch the Support Group of the British 7th Armoured Division to Sofafi where the Italian 63rd Division had its HQ. Meanwhile, the remainder of the 7th Armoured Division and the Indian 4th Division were to advance in two separate columns through the gap between Sofafi to the south and Nibeiwa to the north. After this breakthrough, the British 7th Armoured Division was to attack northwest toward Buq Buq, Egypt while the Indian 4th Division was to attack northeast toward Sidi Barrani, Egypt, attempting to capture Nibeiwa and the Tummars en route. The Royal Navy was also to participate in the operation by bombarding Sidi Barrani.
The plan was to be a raid lasting only five days to drive the Italians out of Egypt. However by 28th November the British were so confident in their plan that Wavell gave the permission for Wilson to escalate the operation and continue westward into Libya should he see an opportunity to do so.
Initial objectives were achieved in only three days, and with considerably fewer casualties than expected. The Indian troops were then redeployed to Sudan and replaced by the untried Australian 6th Division, but Wilson decided nevertheless to press on. A second advance in the first week of January 1941 captured the Libyan town of Bardia, with 36,000 troops taken prisoner. The Australian troops reached Tobruk on the 9th January and paused there to bring up reserves and supplies. A third assault captured Tobruk on the 24th January where a further 17,000 Itlaian troops surrendered. By the 9th February the Italian 10th Army had been effectively eliminated with 32,000 Italians escaping westward in disarray and a total of 130,000 taken as PoWs. 800 miles of territory along the Egyptian and Libyan coast had been taken.
At this point Churchill ordered that the advance was to cease, bringing Operation Compass to an end, so that resources could be diverted to the effort to drive the Italians out of Greece.
Operation Compass
8th December 1940 Attacks Made
9th December 1940 Advance
20th December 1940 Failed to return
22nd December 1940 Gladiators damaged
19th January 1941 Attack on Tobruk
21st January 1941 Assault on Tobruk
22nd January 1941 Into Tobruk
9th February 1941 Relocated
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Those known to have fought in Operation Compass during the Second World War 1939-1945. The names on this list have been submitted by relatives, friends, neighbours and others who wish to remember them, if you have any names to add or any recollections or photos of those listed,
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Want to know more about Operation Compass? There are:8 items tagged Operation Compass available in our Library
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Sgt. Alfred "Tom" Thomas Coldstream Guards   My father Alfred Thomas served in Palestine before the war. On 13th April 1939 he was back in Egypt, where he stayed until another tour of duty in Palestine starting on 27th of May 1940. With the Second World War now well under way, Tom was posted back to Egypt on 27th of June 1940 to face the Italians and, later, Rommel's Afrika Korps.
The Italians under Marshal Graziano launched a limited invasion of Egypt in September 1940, going as far as Sidi Barrani about 50 miles across the border from Libya, where they stopped and fortified the area. This gave General Wavell time to reorganise his forces before going on the counter-attack in Operation Compass, which began on the 7th/8th December 1940 and lasted until 7th February 1941. At that point, the Italians having lost, Sidi Barrani, the port of Bardia, Tobruk, and Benghazi surrendered south of Beda Fomm. During Operation Compass, 133,298 Italian soldiers were captured along with a large number of guns and tanks. The British now halted their attack, having to send troops to Greece. On 12th of February, Rommel flew to Tripoli ahead of his troops, who arrived on the 14th. Rommel almost immediately went on the offensive and by 24 March had taken El Agheila, which was the leading British position. He then advanced on Mersa el Brega, which fell on 31st of March. The British were by now in chaotic retreat with Benghazi falling on 4th of April. The only place holding out against Rommel’s forces was Tobruk.
My father probably fought in both campaigns, but it was during the retreat from Rommel's forces that on 27th of May 1941 he was reported as missing and only later as having been taken prisoner. It is possible that this was while defending the Halfway Pass from the German advance. My father rarely talked about his wartime experience, but he did believe that he remained alive when taken prisoner due to the fact that Rommel showed up around that time, which ensured that prisoners were treated correctly.
Prisoners of war tend to be written out of history apart from a few sensational cases of escape. These escapes were rarely successful and the reprisals could be life threatening. Many POWs were traumatised by their experiences and treatment, along with feelings of guilt for being captured. The first record of Tom, after he was shipped out of North Africa to Italy, was of being interned in Italian POW camp number 66. This camp was in Capua, a few miles south of Naples. It was situated on a vast plain that offered views of the Vesuvius volcano. When the Allies invaded Sicily on 10 July and Southern Italy on 3rd of September 1943, POWs would have been moved north as the Allies advanced. Apparently, when the Italians stopped their participation in the war, they withdrew their guards from the POW camps. This gave an opportunity for prisoners to escape. However, a secret branch of the Ministry of Defence (known as MI9) ordered that British POWs in Italy should remain in their camps after Italy surrendered. Many senior officers within the camps enforced this. As a result of this, the German army was able to walk into dozens of camps and round up the POWs.
Eventually, Tom ended up in Poland at Stalag 344 Lamsdorf (formerly Stalag VIIIB) in Silesia. This was a large German POW camp located in the small town of Lamsdorf, now called Lambinowice in Poland, that was initially built during WW1 to house French and British prisoners. His POW number was 30702.
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Col. Douglas Victory Hutchinson MBE. 12th Field Coy. Royal Engineers My grandpa, Col. Douglas Victory Hutchinson M.B.E., was born soon after the end of World War I. To commemorate what would have been his 100th Birthday, I recently completed his memoirs in a short booklet which can now be found in the Royal Engineers Museum (collection number 201911.4). It tells the story of a young man, bought up on a farm near Warwick and follows his story as he joined the 7th Field Company R.E. in May 1939. When war broke out he embarked from Liverpool to Egypt as an officer in the 12th Field Squadron R.E.
At the beginning of 1941, the Squadron was assigned to 6th Infantry Division, which fought against the Italian 10th Army during Operation Compass. It was re-designated as the XIII Corps alongside the 7th Armoured Division, Australian 6th Division, and 4th Indian Infantry Division. During Operation Battleaxe, the Squadron supported the 22nd Guards Brigade as General Rommel countered the Allied attack. The Division was then sent to Syria to help capture Damascus from the Vichy French. Re-created as the 70th Infantry Division in October 1941, they were transported by the Royal Navy to relieve the Australian garrison in Tobruk.
From September 1941, the 12th Field Squadron, as part of the 70th Infantry Division, were cut off from the rest of the British forces for several months. Along with the rest of the XIII Corps, they finally broke out of Tobruk by early December. After a brief spell of rest and refitting in Egypt, the Squadron found themselves back in Syria to help build the Homs-Tripoli defence line. But before the work was complete they were given orders to return to Egypt to depart for India. During transit, they heard that Rangoon had fallen to the Japanese, and they reached Bombay in March 1942.
By mid-1943, the 12th Field Company served with the 23rd Infantry Brigade. In those early years time was spent on endless recon missions, jungle bridging, and improvised rafting amongst other things. They were in and around the Arakan during the same period as Wingate's earlier offensives to the North. By October 1943, the 70th Division was absorbed into Wingate's Chindit force, where the Division found themselves back in central India for an intensive period of training. Operations included further sorties into the Arakan as part of the newly formed 23rd Long-Range Penetration Brigade in the 34th Column of 4th Battalion, Border Regiment.
In March 1944, the 12th Field Company found themselves diverted from the main Chindit campaign and dispatched to Kohima, where they endured some of the most inhospitable conditions in WWII. The harassing operations by the 23rd Brigade made a major impact on the Japanese to bring about a withdrawal from Imphal/Kohima, and they did not again attempt an invasion on India.
From the end of 1944, Douglas made his way back toward England for the first time in over four years. But he soon found himself back in Rawalpindi as second-in-command with 268th Field Company, assigned to 44th Indian Airbourne Division, for training and to form the 12th Parachute Squadron R.E.
As the war ended, Douglas found himself in the Schleswig-Holstein region of Germany as second-in-command of 147th Field Park Squadron, joining the 11th Armoured Division as part of the 8th Corps. A year later the Squadron joined the 7th Armoured Division. At this time Douglas was promoted to Commanding Officer of 211 Field Park Squadron R.E. for the B.O.A.R. By August 1947, it was re-designated as 145 Field Park Squadron.
Some years later in 1956, Major Hutchinson was posted to Cyprus with the 42 Survey Engineer Regiment where he was appointed Officer Commanding to the 19th Topographic Squadron. From here he oversaw operations in Iraq as well as supervising 3 Field Topographic Squadron in Aden, Oman, and Bahrain. It was during July 1958 when he was caught up in the Iraqi coup d'etat. From 1960 onwards, Colonel Hutchinson served at JHQ B.O.A.R. as Chief of Survey Branch, and was later posted to AFCENT in Fontainebleau, France, as part of NATO.
Colonel Hutchinson assumed his final posting in 1968 as Deputy Director of Field Surveys for Ordnance Survey, and he officially retired in April 1972.
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