Immediately Rommel ordered that 21st Panzer Division gain the high ground dominating the Via Balbia while 15th Panzer cut the road and held back the attempts to escape. But the opposition put up by British tank forces during the panzer advance northwards had delayed their arrival for long enough to allow the South Africans to begin their withdrawal. The 50th Division faced with blocks on the road east carved their way through the Italian 10th Corps and journeying via Bir Hachim reached the main of 8th Army. Two British boxes, those at El Adem and Acroma, were still resisting the most determined assaults of the Axis troops.

Reports reached Army headquarters at 05:00hrs that South African forces were still moving down the Via Balbia. It was clear that the night drive by the panzer divisions had been in vain. The 21st Division, which had been now cast in the role of pursuing force in the next stage of the Gazala battle, was pulled out of the line and directed upon El Adem where 90th Light and Trieste Divisions were still engaged with the British garrison. The 15th Panzer Division which took over the tasks of 21st Panzer made only slow progress against attacks from both east and west and not until evening was the coast reached. Rommel's plan had been fulfilled.

The tons of stores gathered at points throughout the desert, the half a million mines laid in the Gazala positions, and numerical superiority had proved of no avail against a commander of a force in which armour was used en masse. The British cavalry charges, for that is all they had been, however gallant and however destructive of the German panzers, had failed and now there was only the bitter road eastwards back to the Egyptian frontier.

Spirits in the Axis Army were jubilant. The British had been beaten in the field, their armour dispersed or destroyed, and panzer spearheads were already at El Adem, thrusting deeper and deeper past Tobruk hoping to intercept and catch the 8th Army before it could halt and regroup. German diaries and letters of that time are exultant in tone 'Angriffsziel Tobruk' ('the target is Tobruk') or 'now it is Tobruk's turn were recurrent themes.

Rommel's plan to capture the town was based upon the experiences which he had gathered during the unsuccessful attacks of the previous year and upon a new idea. He would bluff the British into believing that he was pursuing them into Egypt with his mobile forces and then, suddenly he would swing back and attack Tobruk from the south-east with one group, while 90th Light Division carried the attack forward to Bardia. With only a day for re­grouping, the Axis forces were ready to continue the battle and an advance was ordered for 17 June upon Gambut. The two German and one Italian panzer divisions moved out against minimal British tank opposition and then fanned out in a race eastwards. The German commentaries on the battle describe how both Rommel and the Africa Corps commander drove the advance forward and how, for as far as one could see, the surface of the desert was covered with tanks and lorries all moving eastwards towards Egypt.

At 18:00hrs at Sidi Maftah the direction of the march changed as the armada swung northwards and Rommel ordered the pursuit to be carried our during the night to reach the sea so that the Via Balbia would be blocked by 18 June. The whole Axis panzer force was spread out, each unit making the best progress it could, while to tha west the remainder of the panzer army had invested Tobruk.

It was not until 16.00hrs on 19 June that the panzer regiments of the Africa Corps moved forward and the hours of waiting had been put to good use by the workshops to carry out the maintenance necessary to keep the vehicles running. Their efforts brought the total of runners with each regiment to between 70 and 75. During the night heavy artillery had come forward into position around the town and the engineer battalion had constructed bridges across which the panzers could pass as they navigated through the anti-tank ditches and defences. The preparations to assault Tobruk had been completed and now only the hours needed to pass until zero at 05:20hrs on the morning of 20 June 1942.

Punctually to the minute the Stukas made their entrance and the crash of the explosions of their bombs was hidden by the noise of the artillery barrage. All fire, whether from land or air, was directed upon the south-eastern corner of the town. Under cover of the barrage engineers began to work on lifting mines and then the Africa Corps armour moved forward with the Italian XX Corps on its left both Corps with the same battle order 'Forward to the sea'. By 06.35hrs the barbed wire around one defensive position had been cut away by a unit from 21st Panzer Division and an hour later the 15th Panzer was able to report that they had captured a strong point on their sector of the narrow attacking front. Then, against increasingly heavy British artillery fire, two more positions fell and at 08:30hrs the 15th Panzer Division sent in the first vehicles across a bridge brought forward to span an anti-tank ditch. On 21st Panzer Division's sector German infantry swarmed across the ditches and by 08:50hrs the first tanks of that division had crossed. A break-in had been made, now the situation had to be exploited. British artillery fire and mine­fields reduced the pace of the advance but could never halt it, and, despite the use of heavy artillery and then of tanks, the Africa Corps forced its way through the British defences; for although Tobruk had a very strong garrison the defences had been run down and it was in no state to stand a new siege.

The Italian Corps had failed in its intent and was still outside the Tobruk perimeter, a situation which resulted in severe flanking fire being poured down upon the German attackers as they moved steadily forward through the maze of defensive positions. The Brescia Division was then brought forward to con­solidate the battlefield behind the advancing spearheads. By midday 21st Panzer had reached an important defence point and having sent out groups to clear the ground to the east of the captured box then advanced upon Tobruk harbour. The 15th Panzer, too, had reached the Via Balbia and had turned its guns upon the town and harbour. The Italian Corps still held up outside the perimeter was then brought in behind Africa Corps and ordered to begin to roll up the British front from east to west. The pace of the advance quickened as the perimeter in which the British were imprisoned grew smaller in extent and the defensive positions were no longer able to bring cross-fire to bear upon the attacking Germans. By 17:00hrs 21st Panzer Division

had begun to attack the town — by 18:30hrs the 15th Panzer Division had captured another box against a defence that held out to the last, and by 19:00hrs Fort Pilastrino had fallen. Then the harbour and town was seized together with the town's water supply.

The onset of darkness did not halt the fighting and shortly before midnight 21st Panzer had captured the El Auda area and the pumping station. All through the night detonations rocked the town as the British supply dumps were blown up and thick clouds of black smoke rolled slowly across the desert. The next morning was spent in consolidating the gains made, clearing out the last areas of resistance, and pursuing the British rearguards. No less than 33,000 prisoners were taken and sufficient supplies to nourish the next stage of the Africa Corps' advance. A fortress with a massive garrison, and large masses of supplies, and which had held out for eight months, had fallen within 40 hours. Now the way forward into Egypt was free and Tobruk, the essential harbour was in Axis hands. But then came the blow from Com­mando Supremo; the advance was to halt so that the forces for Malta might be assembled, and the Corps was not to pass the line Sidi Omar-Halfaya-Sollum. The 90th Light and an infantry battalion had already pushed the advance that far, had reached Bardia, and had halted at Capuzzo which was held by units of 8th Army.