The Rats of Tobruk

The Rats of Tobruk was the name given to the soldiers of the garrison who held the Libyan port of Tobruk against the Afrika Corps, during the Siege of Tobruk in World War II. The siege started on 10 April 1941.

Australian troops of the Australian 9th Division and the 18th Brigade of the Australian 7th Division under Lieutenant General Leslie Morshead made up more than half of the Allied presence in Tobruk with a total strength of over 14,000 men. The rest of the garrison was made up of British (the 3rd Armoured Brigade, 4 artillery regiments) and Indian (the 18th Indian Cavalry Regiment) troops and, beginning in August, the Polish Independent Carpathian Brigade and the Czechoslovak 11th Infantry Battalion.

Origins of The Moniker

In what proved to be a propaganda mis-step, Lord Haw-Haw derisively referred to the Garrison as "poor desert rats of Tobruk" during radio broadcasts. This was probably due mostly to two factors:
#The Australians tended to counterattack to gather equipment as soon as the enemy was routed.
#The defenders dug extensive tunnel networks and shelters to supplement their trenches -- and weren't afraid to use them when bombarded.

The Australians gave themselves the nickname after Radio Berlin described the Australians as 'caught like rats in a trap'. The witty Australians gave themselves the name of 'the Rats of Tobruk'.

The old battleships that helped the Rats of Tobruk with supplies and evacuation of the wounded were insulted by Radio Berlin, being called a 'pile of scrap iron'. The Australians therefore called the battleships 'The Scrap Iron Flotilla'.

Adoption of the Moniker

In a typically Australian dry wit, Australians reclaimed the name as a badge of pride, even going so far as to strike their own unofficial medal bearing the likeness of a rat. The metal used to make the medals came from a German bomber the Rats had shot down with captured German guns. Throughout the conflict the Axis attackers had at least twice the manpower, were a modern mechanized force with tanks, and most importantly, possessed the abilities of reinforcement and resupply via land. In contrast, the Tobruk garrison was ill-equipped and relied on supply by sea.

Role of the Rats of Tobruk

At this time, Rommel's Afrika Korps had never been defeated. During the first phase of the offensive the Rats were mostly concerned with constructing and reinforcing their defenses and observing the enemy. After a few months, however, purely defensive operations gave way to patrols. These forays outside friendly lines were broken into two categories: reconnaissance and fighting.

The job of a reconnaissance patrol is largely obvious: to provide information on the enemy. Sometimes this entailed capture and/or field interrogation of an enemy. Later, almost exclusively at night, a fighting patrol would act on viable targets found, operating under the simplest of guidelines: do as much damage as you can, don't get caught.

Commonly an attack would involve crawling several miles, surrounding the enemy position, followed by a concerted rush with bayonets. In most cases the action was over in a minute or two, more often than not without a shot fired. Probably the most well-known single offensive action by the Rats was a fighting patrol led by Lieutenant William Horace Noyes, which stalked and destroyed three German light tanks, and killed or wounded the crews of 7 machine-gun and 11 anti-tank gun positions and their protective infantry. In addition, they damaged a German heavy tank, killed and wounded 130 in the process of taking a German garrison, most in the initial bayonet charge. No Rats were lost that night.

In April, the soldiers were told to expect reinforcement and resupply within 8 weeks. Against all odds, the Rats held Tobruk until December 1941, when they were replaced by the British 70th Infantry Division which were brought in by the Royal Navy at the start of Operation Crusader which would lift the siege. By that point, the garrison had held Tobruk for 250 days, a little over 8 months.

Modern Commemoration

The Rats of Tobruk hold an identifiable place within the ranks of returned servicemen, particularly in Australia, where there is the Rats of Tobruk Memorial, Canberra.

Their overarching international association, The Rats of Tobruk Association is partly responsible for the erection of numerous monuments in Australia and the UK and involvement with official memorial services. The association also organised with the Royal Mint of Australia the striking of a 50 year anniversary medallion in 1991.

The association's insignia shows the elements of a large uppercase letter 'T' for Tobruk, a long-tailed desert rat, and a crown mimicking Tobruk's official pre-war city flag which was liberated from the city's hall during the siege.

In April 2007, the Victorian contingent of the Rats of Tobruk Association concluded that it could no longer afford the upkeep of Tobruk House, the inner-city Melbourne meeting hall that had been purchased by the Association in the 1950s. Back then the Victorian Association had 1,800 members. By 2007, there were just 80 left, all aged in their 80s and 90s, who decided to sell the hall. From the sale, they hoped to raise up to AUD $1.5 million to be used for research at Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, where a neuroscience ward, the Rats of Tobruk Ward, had already been named after them. [ [http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2007/s1900894.htm "Diggers to auction 'rat hole' for charity"] The 7.30 Report, 18 April 2007] Bill Gibbons, who made his wealth out of trucking, went well beyond the expected price to outbid a Sydney developer for AUD $1.73 million. As reported by "The Age", "in an act that stunned the old diggers, Mr Gibbons...then told the veterans they could keep the hall as long as they wanted." [ [http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/generosity-keeps-rats-of-tobruk-in-their-albert-park-nest/2007/04/19/1176697005210.html "Generosity keeps Rats of Tobruk in their Albert Park nest"] , The Age, 20 April 2007]

In popular culture

*Charles Chauvel directed a 1944 movie titled "The Rats of Tobruk", starring Peter Finch and Chips Rafferty.

Notes

ee also

*Desert Rats

Further reading

* Harrison, Frank, "Tobruk: The Great Siege Reassessed", London: Arms and Armour, 1996
* Latimer, Jon, "Tobruk 1941: Rommel's Opening Move", Oxford: Osprey, 2001
* FitzSimons, Peter, "Tobruk" HarperCollins Publishers (Australia), 2006