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The Battle of Bir Hakeim (Arabic pronunciation: [biʔr ħaˈkiːm]) took place at Bir Hakeim, an oasis in the Libyan desert south and west of Tobruk, during the Battle of Gazala (26 May – 21 June 1942). The 1st Free French Brigade under Général de brigade Marie-Pierre Kœnig defended the position from 26 May – 11 June against Axis forces of Panzerarmee Afrika commanded by Generaloberst Erwin Rommel. The Panzerarmee captured Tobruk ten days later.
Bir Hakeim was first attacked by the Ariete Division early in the Battle of Gazala, then by a mixed force of the Trieste and 90th Light divisions.
The delay imposed on the Axis offensive by the defence of Bir Hakeim influenced the cancellation of Operation Herkules, the Axis invasion of Malta. Rommel invaded Egypt, slowed by British delaying actions until the First Battle of El Alamein in July, where the Axis advance was stopped. Both sides used the battle for propaganda, Winston Churchill declared the Free French to be the "Fighting French". Generalmajor Friedrich von Mellenthin wrote.
Eight Army
At the beginning of 1942, after its defeat in western Cyrenaica during Unternehmen Theseus [de], the British Eighth Army under Lieutenant-General Neil Ritchie faced the Axis troops in Libya roughly 48 km (30 mi) west of the port of Tobruk, along a line running from the coast at Gazala, southwards for about 48 km (30 mi). Both sides accumulated supplies for an offensive to forestall their opponent and General Claude Auchinleck, Commander in Chief of Middle East Command, hoped for the Eighth Army to be ready by May. British code-breakers tracked the dispatch of convoys to Libya as the British offensive on Axis shipping to North Africa was neutralised by Axis bombing of Malta and forecast that the Axis would attack first.
As the Eighth Army was not ready to take the offensive, Ritchie planned to fight a defensive battle on the Gazala line. Auchinleck's appreciation of the situation to Ritchie in mid-May anticipated either a frontal attack in the centre of the Gazala line followed by an advance on Tobruk or a flanking move to the south, looping around the Gazala line towards Tobruk. Auchinleck saw the former as more likely (with a feint on the flank to draw away the Eighth Army tanks) while Ritchie favoured the latter. Auchinleck suggested that British armour be concentrated near El Adem, where it would be well placed to meet either threat.
Since Operation Crusader in late 1941, the Eighth Army had received American built M3 Grant medium tanks with a 37 mm gun in a turret and a 75 mm gun in a hull sponson, which could penetrate the armour of the opposing Panzer III Ausf. H and J and the Panzer IV tank models at 590–780 m (650–850 yd). The frontal armour of the Grant was thick enough to withstand the 50 mm Pak 38 anti-tank gun at 910 m (1,000 yd) and the short-barrelled 50 mm KwK 38 gun of the Panzer III at 230 m (250 yd).