Bir Hakeim (sometimes written Bir Hacheim) is a remote waterpoint in the
Libyan desert, and the former site of a
Turkish fort. From
May 26 to
June 11,
1942, the
First Free French Division of
General Marie Pierre Koenig defended the site against the Italian and German
Afrika Korps of
General Erwin Rommel. Resisting for 16 days, the
Free French gave the retreating
British Eighth Army enough time to reorganize, allowing them to subsequently defeat the Afrika Korps at the
First Battle of El Alamein. General
Bernard Saint-Hillier would say in an October 1991 interview: The battle of Bir HakeimLibyan context in summer 1942 At the beginning of 1942, after its defeat in the west of
Cyrenaica, the British
8 Army faced the Axis troops in
Libya near the fort of
Tobruk. In May 1942 the German advance plan in Libya resumed, aiming to take control of the
Suez Canal. This plan appeared successful until the Battle of Bir Hakeim, which would have disastrous consequences for Rommel's ambitions in the Middle East. It started well; General
Albert Kesselring and his air fleet, returning from the
Eastern Front, would launch
Operation Herkules;
Malta, impeding the Afrika Korps resupply effort, was about to be bombed from
Sicilia and invaded. Italian
combat swimmers had managed to sink two British
battleships (
HMS Queen Elizabeth and
HMS Valiant) and a
Royal Navy cargo ship in
Alexandria bay. Axis resupplying and reinforcements were becoming easier, while the British were forced to send some of their troops to
Southeast Asia to fight Japanese forces.
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