Operation Compass was the first major Allied military operation of the Western Desert Campaign during the Second World War. It resulted in British and Commonwealth forces pushing across a great stretch of Libya and capturing almost all of Cyrenaica, 115,000 Italian soldiers, hundreds of tanks and artillery pieces and more than 1,100 aircraft with very few casualties of their own.
On 10 June 1940, after the Italian declaration of war on France and...
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Operation Compass was the first major Allied military operation of the Western Desert Campaign during the Second World War. It resulted in British and Commonwealth forces pushing across a great stretch of Libya and capturing almost all of Cyrenaica, 115,000 Italian soldiers, hundreds of tanks and artillery pieces and more than 1,100 aircraft with very few casualties of their own.
On 10 June 1940, after the Italian declaration of war on France and Britain, the Italian forces in Libya and the British and Commonwealth forces in Egypt began a series of cross-border raids. An early British raid on 12 June by the British Army's 11th Hussars, an armoured car regiment, resulted in 61 Italians being taken prisoner. On 14 June, Fort Capuzzo and Fort Maddalena were captured by the 11th Hussars, light tanks of the 7th Hussars and infantry of the King's Royal Rifle Corps, resulting in the capture of some 220 Italian prisoners. On 16 June, two notable actions were fought, resulting in the...
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