Operation Compass was the first major Allied military operation of the Western Desert Campaign during World War II. British and Commonwealth forces attacked Italian forces in western Egypt and eastern Libya in December 1940 to February 1941. The operation was a complete success. Allied forces advanced from inside Egypt to central Libya, captured 115,000 Italian prisoners, and destroyed thousands of tanks, artillery pieces, and aircraft, while suffering very few casualties.
Read more about Operation Compass: Battle of Marmarica/Battle of The Camps, British Advance Resumes, Aftermath, Quotes
Famous quotes containing the words operation and/or compass:
“It requires a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding. The only idea of wit, or rather that inferior variety of the electric talent which prevails occasionally in the North, and which, under the name of “Wut,” is so infinitely distressing to people of good taste, is laughing immoderately at stated intervals.”
—Sydney Smith (1771–1845)
“be a while our guests:
For stars, gaze on our eyes.
The compass love shall hourly sing,
And as he goes about the ring,
We will not miss
To tell each point he nameth with a kiss.”
—William Browne (1591–1643)