![]() ![]() ![]() The battle continued into December when supply shortages forced Rommel to narrow his front and to shorten his lines of communication. On 27 November, the New Zealanders reached the Tobruk garrison and relieved the siege. On 24 November Rommel ordered the "dash to the wire" and caused chaos in the British rear echelons but allowed the British armoured forces to recover. On 23 November, the 5th South African Brigade was destroyed at Sidi Rezegh ( Arabic: سيدي رزق, romanized: Sayyidī Rizq Arabic pronunciation: ( listen)) but inflicted many German tank casualties. ![]() From 18 to 22 November, the dispersal of British armoured units led to them suffering 530 tank losses and inflicted Axis losses of about 100 tanks. On 18 November 1941, the Eighth Army launched a surprise attack. The operation was intended to bypass Axis defences on the Egyptian–Libyan frontier, defeat the Axis armoured forces and relieve the 1941 Siege of Tobruk. Operation Crusader (18 November – 30 December 1941) was a military operation of the Western Desert Campaign during the Second World War by the British Eighth Army (with Commonwealth, Indian and Allied contingents) against the Axis forces (German and Italian) in North Africa commanded by Generalleutnant Erwin Rommel.
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