The Rats of Tobruk

The Rats of Tobruk was the name given to the soldiers of the garrison who held the Libyan port of Tobruk against the Afrika Corps, during the Siege of Tobruk in World War II. The siege started on 10 April 1941 and was finally relieved at the end of November.

Between April and August 1941, around 14,000 Australian soldiers were besieged in Tobruk by a German–Italian army commanded by General Erwin Rommel. The garrison, commanded by Lieutenant General Leslie Morshead, consisted of the 9th Australian Division (20th, 24th, and 26th Brigades), the 18th Brigade of the 7th Australian Division, four regiments of British artillery, and some Indian troops.

Origins of the name

In what proved to be a propaganda mis-step, Lord Haw-Haw derisively referred to the Garrison as "poor desert rats of Tobruk" during radio broadcasts. This was probably mostly due to two factors:

The Rats of Tobruk (1944 film)

The Fighting Rats of Tobruk is a 1944 Australian film directed by Charles Chauvel. The film follows three drover friends who enlist in the Australian Army together during World War II. Their story is based on the siege of the Libyan city of Tobruk in North Africa by Rommel's Afrika Korps. The largely Australian defenders held the city for 250 days before being relieved by British forces.

Plot

Three friends are droving cattle in Australia in 1939: the restless Bluey Donkin, easy-going Milo Trent and English Peter Linton, who is in the country on a working holiday. Squatter's daughter Kate Carmody is in love with Bluey but he refuses to be tied down to any one woman. War breaks out and the three men enlist in the Australian army and are assigned to the 9th Division. They ship out to Africa.

After early successes against the Italian army, the army is besieged in Tobruk. In between attacks, the men have comic encounters with a barber and Peter falls for a nurse, Sister Mary, after being wounded. There are several subsequent attacks in which all three soldiers are wounded. Peter Linton is killed but the others manage to repel the Germans.

The Rats

The Rats may refer to:

See also

The Rats (novel)

The Rats (1974) is a horror novel written by British writer James Herbert. This was Herbert's first novel and included graphic depictions of death and mutilation. A film adaptation was made in 1982, called Deadly Eyes. A 1985 adventure game for the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum based on the book was published by Hodder & Stoughton Ltd and produced by Five Ways Software Ltd.The Rats was followed by two sequels, Lair and Domain.

Background

Herbert became inspired to write The Rats in early 1972, whilst watching Tod Browning's Dracula; specifically, after seeing the scene where Renfield describes a nightmare he had involving hordes of rats. Linking the film to childhood memories he had of rats in the London suburbs, Herbert stated in later interviews that he wrote the book primarily as a pastime; "It seemed like a good idea at the time, I was as naive as that." The manuscript was typed by Herbert's wife Eileen, who sent it off after nine months to nine different publishers.

Plot summary

The Rats (video game)

The Rats is a Government simulation game and Survival horror Text Adventure game that runs on the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum computers. It is based on the novel of the same name by James Herbert. An Amstrad CPC version was planned but was never released.

Gameplay

The game is generally played as a simulation that allow the player to strategically send emergency forces (rat exterminators, police men, fire men and eventually army troops) to areas where the rat threat has spread and provide them with available equipment. Also the player can get ten available researchers to develop addition weapons, defenses and super weapons to keep the rats at bay and to provide useful information to progress in the game. Should the rat threat reach beyond the London limits, the Research center, the Government center or Harris' apartment or if all emergency forces are lost, the game is over.

In between the simulation game play, the game will suddenly switch to the role of a playable character in a randomly chosen text adventure scenario. The player has to select one or more verbal options to perform actions to allow the character to survive against the rat threat and avoid getting killed. While it is not crucial to keep the characters alive, saving them grants the player additional reinforcements and research to aid against the rat threat. However if one of the main characters Harris, Howard or Foskins dies, the game is over.

Tobruk (1967 film)

Tobruk is a 1967 American war film starring Rock Hudson and George Peppard and directed by Arthur Hiller. The film was written by Leo Gordon (who also acted in the film) and released through Universal Pictures.

Set in North Africa during the North African Campaign of World War II, it is a fictionalized story of members of the British Army's Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) and the Special Identification Group (SIG) who endeavour to destroy the fuel bunkers of Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel's Panzer Army Africa in Tobruk. The movie is loosely based on the British attacks on German and Italian forces at Tobruk codenamed "Operation Agreement", though unlike the movie, Operation Agreement was a failure.

Plot

In September 1942, Rommel's Africa Korps is only 90 miles (144 km) from the Suez Canal, but running dangerously low on fuel. The British approve a plan to destroy German fuel bunkers at Tobruk in an attempt to cripple Rommel's attack.

The author of the plan, Canadian Major Donald Craig (Rock Hudson) had been captured by Vichy French forces. His expertise is considered essential to the success of the raid. Craig is rescued by Captain Kurt Bergman (George Peppard) of the Special Identification Group (SIG) and some of his men, German Jews serving with the British. They then join up with commandos of the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG), under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel John Harker (Nigel Green), at Kufra in south-eastern Libya.

Tobruk (game)

Tobruk is a board wargame set in the North African Desert circa 1942 and was published by Avalon Hill in 1975. The game is largely focused on the armored forces available to the British, Italian, and German forces, with infantry, artillery, and air aspects of combat present in secondary, reduced or abstract form. The game scale is section level, with each counter representing a section of infantry or individual vehicle or artillery piece.

Historical basis

The historical basis for the scenarios are the 1942 actions collectively known as the, Battle of Gazala and Battle of Bir Hakeim, all occurring near the city of Tobruk. German and Italian forces under Erwin Rommel succeeded in driving the British forces back. This is not to be confused with the Siege of Tobruk, during an earlier phase of the highly mobile desert war. The game's scenarios condense or selectively reproduce portions of key engagements that occurred during these battles.

The game designers made efforts to determine the penetrating power of the various weapons systems: from the lowly Boys "anti-tank" rifle to the feared German 88mm anti-tank gun. This was then compared to the actual steel thickness/angle of armor plate and also the profile/design of the various tanks. Specific weaknesses of the various tanks are also taken into account, such as the poor armor surrounding the hull machine gun on the Italian 13/40. When confronting infantry and light targets, certain weapons lack a good high-explosive shell, while others (howitzers & mortars) can wipe out infantry, but cannot confront tanks at long range.