This country is at war with Germany. We shall go under the end. I remember the sheets of flame which came up and almost blinded us for my guns.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the World War II podcast. Almost from the start of producing the podcast I have wanted to do an episode looking at Dubruk.

I think it probably first gets a mention in episode 11 where we looked at Richard O'Connor since then the town has been mentioned in numerous episodes.

Now that HistoryGuild.org have a project which focuses on Australians in the Mediterranean theatre during World War II and it's a big thank you to David Phillips from the HistoryGuild who suggested our guest today and put me in touch with David Mitchell-Hill Green.

David is the author of Dubruk, Rommel and the Battles leading to his greatest victory. It is a fascinating read which places to broke in a wider history to help explain why it was strategically important.

So thank you to the HistoryGuild for suggesting the topic and putting me into it with David. If you want to find out more about the work the HistoryGuild does, go to HistoryGuild.org where there is a whole pile of articles and posts to read.

David, thank you for joining me. I just mentioned Dubruk as a long history. Do you want to give us some background to the town? Where is it geographically?

It's the largest port between Alexandria in Egypt and then Tripoli, the capital of Libya, the West. Not surprisingly because it's a natural harbor it was an important port in ancient times the Greeks had a colony there and then the Romans occupied Dubruk and I guess the first fortifications were where Emperor Justinian built a castle or a fortress there.

And so I thought in setting the scene that fortifications that Dubruk predate the Second World War by millennia that the Romans had first built a fortress there and then the Muslims or the Sarasins had also built a castle on the north side of the harbour.

So there really was this ancient history which was like a I guess just the frame, the importance of Dubruk as a strategic site in world history.

When did the Italians take control of it? Italy was like a late nation to sort of reach statehood if you like and a lot of the older countries had taken the colonial bites out of Africa and by the time Italy as the Kingdom of Italy looks to the south there were a few scraps that were left and one of them was Libya and there was really no worth in terms of raw materials or anything to be had.

I guess in terms of recreating the Roman Empire Italy looked to the south and in 1911 they staged a confrontation.

The Italian military sort of paraded into Tripoli and in fact it was the first use of aircraft in war.

So they were you know sitting in the scenes in many ways and they expected to have this promenade but of course the local Sunusi tribesmen resistant vehemently against what they saw as the infidel invaders and so the resistance was fierce.

Tripruk was actually taken on the 4th of October 1911 and an annual steam disfleet into the harbour range these guns on the buildings there and a landing party of say 400 Marines went ashore with this resistance Turks before Turkey was Turkey but Ottoman Turks gathered from around the world including Australia to fight in this G had if you like and one of the characters involved was.

I got by the name of Mustafa Kamal who was the the future president of Turkey and he in negotiations traveled across the border from Egypt in civilian disguise and traveled to Tripruk and he persuaded a local chic to join him in attacking the Italian position at Tripruk they supplied rifles and so forth and they actually attacked on the 22nd of December 1911

and capturing a hill outside of Tripruk and this particular company of Italian troops because Tripruk is not a natural fortress by any means it's just wide open expanse leading down through a series of step to the sharpness to the harbour so in no way a natural fortress so they began fortifying it to prevent another land would attack from the Sunusi tribesmen of Libya.

So I guess that was the first step in the military history of Tripruk I guess was the ancient history and then fast forwarding to 1911 there was this chapter if you like and to me it just helped set the scene that Tripruk was obviously strategically important and fortifications were starting to be set in place by the Italians and of course this formed the basis of what the British would overcome and then defend themselves behind.

So the outbreak of the set were war the Italians 1940 cross the Egyptian border don't they the first British major counter attack is Operation Compass which was I mean this is this sort of sprawling operation is that starts as a you know as a raid.

It just gets bigger bigger bigger was put trip book initially seen as an objective by the British well actually in the long range planning I'm trip was on the I'm the whiteboard let us say but I think it started off because the Italians had only advanced some 60 miles across the Egyptian frontier general corners raid if you like was first and foremost to sort of hit these series of isolated camps around city Barani and then as I'm going to say I'm going to say I'm going to say I'm going to say I'm going to say I'm going to say I'm going to say I'm going to say I'm going to say I'm going to say I'm going to say I'm going to say I'm going to say I'm going to say I'm going to say I'm going to say I'm going to say I'm going to say I'm going to say I'm going to say I'm going to say I'm going to say I'm going to say I'm going to say I'm going to say I'm going to say I'm going to say I'm

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