Once his southern flank was cleared, his
panzers resupplied, and his enemy weakened, Rommel charged out of the cauldron on June 11. The remaining British armor held off the
panzers just long enough for the 1st South African and 50th Divisions to escape. By the Fifteenth, German tanks had reached the coast, after immobilizing all but 60 of Ritchie’s tanks. Two days earlier, Ritchie and Auchinleck had been debating whether the Eighth Army should retreat to Egypt and, if so, whether forces should be left to hold Tobruk; the decision was in the affirmative in both instances. Rommel, determined not to be stopped again by a thorn in his flank, quickly assaulted and seized Tobruk on June 21. There he found 2,000 tons (two-and-a-half million gallons) of gasoline and 2,000 wheeled vehicles, all of which he desperately needed before moving into Egypt.
The West Point Military History Series, Thomas E. Griess, Editor, The Second World War: Europe and the Mediterranean
