The orders for the new offensive were that on the Sollum front there were to be demonstrations and movement to give the impression that the attack would come from the east. On the Tobruk front a mixed infantry, tank, and anti-tank group of 5th Light Division would assault and seize the south and south­western faces of Ras el Mdauar during the night of 30 April and at dawn a panzer attack would continue eastwards towards Fort Pilastrino. The left flank neighbours, mainly an infantry group of 15th Panzer, would take out the strong points on the north of Ras el Mdauar and cut the ridge running eastwards from Acroma. At daybreak this group would advance on both sides of the Acroma track towards Pilastrino and attack towards Tobruk harbour.

One battalion of 115th Infantry Regiment was to send out storm troops to take the strong point along the combat sector and then launch a night attack which would carry them into the fortress. The actual assault group, a regiment made up of all the other divisional troops, would enter the captured areas during the night and at dawn would go through the positions won by the battalion to conduct the final assault. To soften up the defences before the attack began, artillery and Stuka bombardments would be carried out at last light and two Italian divisions, one on either side of the main infantry and panzer groups, would roll up the British line and take out strong points.

When these orders had finally been issued, Von Esebeck commanding 15th Panzer lodged an immediate protest against the time of the assault and against the plan of attack. His troops which had been brought by plane from the mainland would arrive tired and without their equipment and would have to take part in an attack unrested and hungry not knowing the terrain for Rommel, in overruling the protests, forbad any pre-battle reconnaissance.

The offensive opened on 30 April as planned with a heavy artillery barrage falling upon the breach area and at other points to confuse the Australian defenders of 26th Brigade as to the direction and point of assault. The first troops moved out followed by the machine gun battalion and 115th Regiment's Battalion and soon the first optimistic reports came in that many of the field defences had been captured according to plan. These reports proved to be untrue for the attacking troops, expecting European-style pill boxes standing above the ground, had not been told that the fortifications in Tobruk were sangar-type strong points at ground level and, therefore, had not captured them. The situation at midnight was so unclear that 15th Panzer Division's commander asked whether the assault regiment should take up position within the perimeter and, having received the confirming order, sent in the men at 02.00hrs. Immediately the regiment came under British fire. By first light the situation in the gapped area was still unresolved and remained so until 08-OOhrs when early morning fog lifted and the commanders could see for themselves how intricately jumbled were their units and that those which had reached the target areas had suffered severely.

A number of British strong points had still not been taken and these were firing into the backs of the 15th Panzer infantry. The armoured fighting vehicles headed through and across the positions held by the machine gun battalion and the German infantry rose out of their shallow holes to follow the assault. Suddenly the tanks swung to the east and not to the south-east as had been ordered, for they had been instructed to help forward the attack of the Ariete Division which, like that of Brescia, had failed to make any headway against the determined British defence. The whole assault was grinding slowly to a halt; the troops had had most of their officers killed, the units were mixed, and the objectives unclear. The commander of 15th Panzer, who came up about 09.00hrs ordered the attack to be halted and for the troops in and around the breach to go over to the defence. He refused to countenance a withdrawal back to the original start line for it was hoped to revive the attack when fresh troops were brought up.

Throughout the long May day the British artillery shells crashed down upon the German troops in slit trenches, scraped hastily in the rocky ground, around the gap in the wire. The bombardment was aimed not only at destroy­ing them in their positions but of preventing reinforcements from reaching them or allowing them to withdraw from the breach. But even under the barrage, units were sorted out, regrouped, fed, and issued with fresh ammunition. The ground was prepared for defence and all things made ready. At last light British attacks supported by heavier barrages came in and were beaten back. For days 8th Army's guns thundered a cannonade to which the German artillery could make no adequate reply because ammunition, already in short supply, had been almost totally consumed on the first day. Infantry reinforcements from 15th Panzer took over from the front line survivors.

The breach in the defences which the Germans still held was more than two miles deep and, although it held the British attention and tied down part of the garrison, the same restrictions applied to the German troops for they, too, were held fast in that sector, unable to move. As a result of this offensive the strength and weaknesses of the Tobruk fortress were assessed and the German troops became accustomed to the type of righting in which they were engaged in the African theatre of operations and to the difficulties of life in the desert. The battle enabled the German commanders to produce new tactics and to improve upon old ones and their Italian comrades-in-arms increased in confidence as more and newer weapons were made available to them.

All the troops had been subjected to strain but those who had come by air to fight at Tobruk had suffered the most. Immediately upon landing they had been taken by lorry towards the town, had been debussed, and marched up the line carrying all their kit, weapons, ammunition, food, and water. Tired and hungry they had then put in a night attack across ground completely unknown to them. Due to the battle conditions and to certain administrative blunders during their first few days in the line they had neither been fed nor given water. That these men, with their leaders dead, themselves hungry, thirsty, and totally exhausted, still had the determination to go forward again and again into local attacks to storm the British positions demonstrated their military ability and a high degree of soldierly courage. [7]

Von Paulus made his report to OKH, and in it set out the supply priorities suggesting that the lines of communication were the most important feature of the campaign. The principal task, as he wrote, was for the Axis to hold Cyrenaica. There was to be no more talk of an advance to Suez.

  Sollum June 1941

From the 1 May, while the main of Africa Corps was making great efforts to break into Tobruk, the weakness of the eastern flank was again causing con­cern, for a British attack in that sector was inevitable and imminent. To defend this weak sector Rommel proposed to withdraw 15th Panzer Division from its positions around Tobruk and to replace his offensive armour with static Italian units. But then in the middle of May came news that a British assault was being made against Sollum and Capuzzo. Giving ground under pressure from superior forces the garrison commander withdrew his perimeter to a line running from Sidi Aziz to the road south of Bardia and, during this contraction, some of his Italian units were lost to swiftly moving British units.

The commander-in-chief then ordered the construction of a defence line along the high ground at Gazala, to the west of Tobruk, in the event that he would have to withdraw as a result of a British offensive and with work on this in full progress, then regrouped his forces. To support the eastern flank he formed a battle group from 8th Panzer Regiment and a battery of 8.8cm guns and ordered it to thrust with best possible speed towards the Sidi Azeiz-Capuzzo line but in that sector aggressive defence had already thrown back the British tank thrusts forcing Wavell to put in more men and machines to force a conclusion. Capuzzo fell to the British and was recaptured, Sollum was won back, and Halfaya seized. With no successes to record Wavell with­drew his forces and called off the offensive. The eastern flank outpost to the investing forces around Tobruk was secure.