The Probert Encyclopaedia of Warfare

BATTLE OF HALFAYA PASS

During the Second World War, the Battle of Halfaya Pass was a disastrous British attack in June 1941 on a German-held pass south of Bardia, on the Libya-Cyrenaica border. The pass gave access from the coastal plains through the escarpment to the inland plateau and thus to the open desert. Secured by Field Marshal Erwin Rommel during his first offensive in 1941, it became notorious when attacked by British tanks during Operation Battleaxe on the 15th of June 1941. Rommel had concealed a number of 88 mm anti-aircraft guns in the pass and deployed some of his armour to draw the British into the pass. When British tanks pursued this decoy force they were almost all destroyed by the concealed guns.
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