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Baggush Box
The Baggush Box was a British Army field fortification built in the Western Desert near Maaten Baggush, east of Mersa Matruh during the Western Desert Campaign of World War II. Background The box was built by men of the Western Desert Force (Lieutenant-General Richard O'Connor) as a tented camp, with offices, said to be bomb-proof dug under sand dunes, as a temporary billet for troops taking part in operations against the Italian invasion of Egypt in 1940 by the Italian 10th Army. O'Connor opened his headquarters on 8 June. An airfield was a short distance inland and served as the headquarters of the Desert Air Force (Air Commodore Raymond Collishaw). Prelude On 28 June, Marshal of the Air Force () Italo Balbo, Governor-General of Libya and Commander-in-Chief of Italian North Africa ( ASI), flew a reconnaissance sortie over Sidi Barrani and Maaten Baggush. Balbo's aircraft was shot down by the cruiser ''San Giorgio'' in Tobruk harbour and the occupants killed while com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Raymond Collishaw
Raymond Collishaw, (22 November 1893 – 28 September 1976) was a distinguished Canadian fighter pilot, squadron leader, and commanding officer who served in the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) and later the Royal Air Force. He was the highest scoring RNAS flying ace and the second highest scoring Canadian pilot of the First World War. He was noted as a great leader in the air, leading many of his own formations into battle. After the Great War, he became a permanent commissioned officer in the Royal Air Force (RAF), seeing action against the Bolsheviks in 1919-20, and subsequently commanding various Air Service detachments. During the Second World War, he commanded No. 204 Group (which later became the Desert Air Force) in North Africa, achieving great success against the numerically and technologically superior Italian Air Force. He was retired in 1943. Early life Raymond Collishaw was born in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada, on 22 November 1893. His father was John ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Maitland Wilson, 1st Baron Wilson
Field Marshal Henry Maitland Wilson, 1st Baron Wilson, (5 September 1881 – 31 December 1964), also known as Jumbo Wilson, was a senior British Army officer of the 20th century. He saw active service in the Second Boer War and then during the First World War on the Somme and at Passchendaele. During the Second World War he served as General Officer Commanding-in-Chief (GOC-in-C) British Troops in Egypt, in which role he launched Operation Compass, attacking Italian forces with considerable success, in December 1940. He went on to be Military Governor of Cyrenaica in February 1941, commanding a Commonwealth expeditionary force to Greece in April 1941 and General Officer Commanding (GOC) British Forces in Palestine and Trans-Jordan in May 1941. Wilson became GOC Ninth Army in Syria and Palestine in October 1941, GOC Persia and Iraq Command in August 1942 and GOC Middle East Command in February 1943. In the closing stages of the war he was Supreme Allied Commander in the M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthur Longmore
Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Murray Longmore, (8 October 1885 – 10 December 1970) was an early naval aviator, before reaching high rank in the Royal Air Force. He was Commander-in-Chief of the RAF's Middle East Command from 1940 to 1941. Early life Born in Manly, New South Wales, the son of Charles Croker Longmore and Janet Murray, he was educated at Benges School, Hertford, and Foster's Academy, Stubbington, before entering Dartmouth Naval College. He was commissioned into the Royal Navy in 1904. Having developed an interest in flying, he volunteered for pilot training when the Navy accepted an offer of training facilities by the Royal Aero Club, and was one of the four officers to be selected. He obtained flying certificate No.72 in April 1911 at an RAeC meeting that also awarded licences to the pioneer naval aviators C. R. Samson and Wilfred Parke. That year, assisted by Oswald Short of Short Brothers, he devised a way of mounting streamlined air bags on the undercar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operation Compass
Operation Compass (also it, Battaglia della Marmarica) was the first large British military operation of the Western Desert Campaign (1940–1943) during the Second World War. British, Empire and Commonwealth forces attacked Italian forces of the 10th Army (Marshal Rodolfo Graziani) in western Egypt and Cyrenaica, the eastern province of Libya, from December 1940 to February 1941. The Western Desert Force (WDF) (Lieutenant-General Richard O'Connor) with about advanced from Mersa Matruh in Egypt on a five-day raid against the Italian positions of the 10th Army, which had about in fortified posts around Sidi Barrani in Egypt and in Cyrenaica. The WDF swiftly defeated the Italians in their fortified posts and at Sidi Barrani and then exploited the success, forcing the rest of the 10th Army out of Egypt and capturing the ports along the Libyan coast. The 10th Army was cut off as it retreated towards Tripolitania and defeated at the Battle of Beda Fomm, the remnants being pu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rodolfo Graziani
Rodolfo Graziani, 1st Marquis of Neghelli (; 11 August 1882 – 11 January 1955), was a prominent Italian military officer in the Kingdom of Italy's ''Regio Esercito'' ("Royal Army"), primarily noted for his campaigns in Africa before and during World War II. A dedicated fascist and prominent member of the National Fascist Party, he was a key figure in the Italian military during the reign of Victor Emmanuel III. Graziani played an important role in the consolidation and expansion of the Italian colonial empire during the 1920s and 1930s, first in Libya and then in Ethiopia. He became infamous for harsh repressive measures, such as the use of concentration camps that caused many civilian deaths, and for extreme measures taken against the native resistance of the countries invaded by the Italian army, such as the hanging of Omar Mukhtar. Due to his brutal methods used in Libya, he was nicknamed ''Il macellaio del Fezzan'' ("the butcher of Fezzan"). In February 1937, after an a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Italian Cruiser San Giorgio
The Italian cruiser ''San Giorgio'' was the name ship of her class of two armored cruisers built for the Royal Italian Navy ('' Regia Marina'') in the first decade of the 20th century. Commissioned in 1910, the ship was badly damaged when she ran aground before the start of the Italo-Turkish War in 1911, although she was repaired before its end. During World War I, ''San Giorgio''s activities were limited by the threat of Austro-Hungarian submarines, although the ship did participate in the bombardment of Durazzo, Albania, in late 1918. She acted as a royal yacht for Crown Prince Umberto's 1924 tour of South America and then deployed to the Indian Ocean to support operations in Italian Somaliland in 1925–1926. ''San Giorgio'' served as a training ship from 1930 to 1935 and was then rebuilt in 1937–1938 to better serve in that role. As part of her reconstruction, she received a modern anti-aircraft suite that was augmented before she was transferred to bolster the d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Italian North Africa
Libya ( it, Libia; ar, ليبيا, Lībyā al-Īṭālīya) was a colony of the Fascist Italy located in North Africa, in what is now modern Libya, between 1934 and 1943. It was formed from the unification of the colonies of Italian Cyrenaica and Italian Tripolitania, which had been Italian possessions since 1911. From 1911 until the establishment of a unified colony in 1934, the territory of the two colonies was sometimes referred to as "Italian Libya" or Italian North Africa (''Africa Settentrionale Italiana'', or ASI). Both names were also used after the unification, with Italian Libya becoming the official name of the newly combined colony. It had a population of around 150,000 Italians. The Italian colonies of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica were taken by Italy from the Ottoman Empire during the Italo-Turkish War of 1911-1912, and run by Italian governors. In 1923, indigenous rebels associated with the Senussi Order organized the Libyan resistance movement against Italian set ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Italian Libya
Libya ( it, Libia; ar, ليبيا, Lībyā al-Īṭālīya) was a colony of the Fascist Italy located in North Africa, in what is now modern Libya, between 1934 and 1943. It was formed from the unification of the colonies of Italian Cyrenaica and Italian Tripolitania, which had been Italian possessions since 1911. From 1911 until the establishment of a unified colony in 1934, the territory of the two colonies was sometimes referred to as "Italian Libya" or Italian North Africa (''Africa Settentrionale Italiana'', or ASI). Both names were also used after the unification, with Italian Libya becoming the official name of the newly combined colony. It had a population of around 150,000 Italians. The Italian colonies of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica were taken by Italy from the Ottoman Empire during the Italo-Turkish War of 1911-1912, and run by Italian governors. In 1923, indigenous rebels associated with the Senussi Order organized the Libyan resistance movement against Italian set ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
