Bir Hakeim (sometimes written Bir Hacheim) is a remote oasis in the Libyan desert, and the former site of a Turkish fort. During the Battle of Gazala the First Free French Division of General Marie Pierre Koenig defended the site from 26 May to 11 June 1942 against attacking German and Italian forces directed by General Erwin Rommel. Resisting for 16 days, the Free French gave the retreating British Eighth Army enough time to reorganize, allowing...
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Bir Hakeim (sometimes written Bir Hacheim) is a remote oasis in the Libyan desert, and the former site of a Turkish fort. During the Battle of Gazala the First Free French Division of General Marie Pierre Koenig defended the site from 26 May to 11 June 1942 against attacking German and Italian forces directed by General Erwin Rommel. Resisting for 16 days, the Free French gave the retreating British Eighth Army enough time to reorganize, allowing them subsequently to halt the Axis advance at the First Battle of El Alamein.
General Bernard Saint-Hillier would say in an October 1991 interview:
At the beginning of 1942, after its defeat in the west of Cyrenaica, the British 8th 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...
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