Operation Crusader November 18, 1941 - December 31, 1941 El Agheila is on the lower left (Click to enlarge)

El Agheila is a coastal city on the Gulf of Sidra in far southwestern Cyrenaica, Libya. It is currently known as Ajdabiya, and is the capital of the Municipality of the same name. But it is best known to history as the site of several World War II battles during the North African Campaign. In Febuary 1941, it was taken by the British Western Desert Force following their destruction of the Italian Tenth Army in Operation Compass. The British halted there while most of the Western Desert Force was moved to deal with the Axis' invasion of Greece. This gave the German Afrika Korps under Erwin Rommel a chance to arrive and launch an offensive which retook El Agheila in March and drove the British all the way back to Tobruk and the Egyptian frontier. Rommel would further fortify the city and use it as a base for his operations (see Siege of Tobruk ). After being driven back from Tobruk following Operation Crusader in December 41, the Afrika Korps fell back to El Agheila, halting their retreat and the British advance there. In January 1942, Rommel launched a new offensive at El Agheila, which would again drive the British back towards Tobruk. This time he would capture Tobruk (see Battle of Gazala ) and advance into Egypt before being halted at El Alamein in July 42 and decisively defeated there in November. The Afrika Korps was broken, and its retreating remnants gave up El Agheila for the final time to the advancing British Eighth Army in late December 42. Download high resolution version (1203x450, 120 KB)Auchinlecks offensive -- November 18, 1941 - December 31, 1941 Source: US ARMY License: US Government document. ... Download high resolution version (1203x450, 120 KB)Auchinlecks offensive -- November 18, 1941 - December 31, 1941 Source: US ARMY License: US Government document. ... Jump to: navigation, search November 18 is the 322nd day of the year (323rd in leap years), with 43 remaining. ... 1941 was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Jump to: navigation, search December 31 is the 365th day of the year (366th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1941 was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Categories: Stub | Seas ... Roman province of Cyrenaica, 120 AD Cyrenaica was a Roman province on the northern coast of Africa between Egypt and Numidia; it had been formerly Greek. ... Categories: Stub | Municipalities of Libya ... The Arabic term for the Libyan administrative unit translated into English as municipality is baladiyah (plural baladiyat). ... Jump to: navigation, search World War II was a truly global conflict with many facets: immense human suffering, fierce indoctrinations, and the use of new, extremely devastating weapons such as the atom bomb World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a mid-20th-century conflict that... Jump to: navigation, search The North African Campaign, also known as the Desert War, of World War II took place in the North African desert during 1940-1943. ... February is the second month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1941 was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Western Desert Force, during World War II, was a British Commonwealth Army unit stationed in Egypt. ... Operation Compass was a World War II Allied military operation in the Western Desert Campaign. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... (see also Greco-Italian War) The campaign in the Balkans was a great success for Nazi Germany and a stunning loss for the British, still hopeful that they would retain a small bit of offensive power there to hit Germany in the flank. ... The Deutsches Afrikakorps (often just Afrika Korps or DAK) was the corps-level headquarters controlling the German Panzer divisions in Libya and Egypts Western Desert during the North African Campaign of World War II. Since there was little turnover in the units attached to the corps the term is... Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel (   listen?) (November 15, 1891 – October 14, 1944) was one of the most distinguished German Field Marshals and commander of the Deutsches Afrika Korps in World War II. He is also known by his nickname The Desert Fox (Wüstenfuchs,   listen?), for the skillful military campaigns he... March is the third month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of seven Gregorian months with the length of 31 days. ... Tobruk (Arabic: طبرق) is a seaport in eastern Libya in Northern Africa. ... The Siege of Tobruk was a lengthy confrontation between Axis and Allied forces, mostly Australian, in the North African Campaign of World War II. It started on 10 April 1941 as Generalleutnant Erwin Rommel invested the fort, besieging it for months, and launched attacks against the fort that were unsuccessful. ... Operation Crusader (November 18 - December 10, 1941) was the third attempt to relieve the Siege of Tobruk and the one that succeded. ... Jump to: navigation, search December is the twelfth and last month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of seven Gregorian months with the length of 31 days. ... January is the first month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of seven Gregorian months with the length of 31 days. ... Jump to: navigation, search This article is about the year. ... The Battle of Gazala was an important battle of the World War II Western Desert Campaign, fought around the port of Tobruk in Libya from May 26 to June 21, 1942. ... The First Battle of El Alamein 1–July 31, 1942 was a battle of the Western Desert Campaign of World War II, fought between the German–Italian Afrikakorps commanded by Erwin Rommel and the British Eighth Army, commanded by Claude Auchinleck. ... July is the seventh month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of seven Gregorian months with the length of 31 days. ... The Battle of Alamein, or more correctly the Second Battle of El Alamein, marked a significant turning point in the Western Desert Campaign of World War II. The battle lasted from October 23 to November 3, 1942. ... Jump to: navigation, search For other uses, see November (disambiguation). ... The Eighth Army was one of the best-known formations in World War II, fighting in the campaigns in North Africa and Italy. ...