The Rats of Tobruk
Allied division in the World War 2 Africa campaign
The Rats of Tobruk were soldiers of the Australian-led Allied garrison, as well as the Polish Independent Carpathian Rifle Brigade that held the Libyan port of Tobruk against the Afrika Corps, during the Siege of Tobruk in World War II. The siege started on 11 April 1941 and was relieved on 10 December. The port continued to be held by the Allies until its surrender on 21 June 1942.
Between April and August 1941, some 35,000 allies, including 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, included the 9th Australian Division (20th, 24th, and 26th Brigades), the 18th Brigade of the 7th Australian Division, four regiments of British artillery, and the 3rd Indian Motor Brigade. Between August and October, most of the original garrison was replaced by British, Polish and Czechoslovak troops.
The last official ROT member, an Australian ex-soldier, died in August 2024, at the age of 102.
Origins of the name
The defenders had adopted Tobruk's excellent network of below-ground defensive positions which had been built pre-war by the Italian Army. The propagandist for Germany, William Joyce, better known as "Lord Haw-Haw", began describing the besieged men as living like rats in underground dug-outs and caves. In radio broadcasts, he derisively referred to and addressed the garrison as the "rats of Tobruk". Likewise, the ageing warships that supplied and evacuated Tobruk were denigrated by German propaganda as "scrap iron".
The public source identifies “The Rats of Tobruk” as allied division in the World War 2 Africa campaign. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Rats, Tobruk and Allied.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7759482. The first chronological checks are 1941, 1942 and 2024.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Rats of Tobruk” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.