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:
“You may read any quantity of books, and you may almost as ignorant as you were at starting, if you don’t have, at the back of your minds, the change for words in definite images which can only be acquired through the operation of your observing faculties on the phenomena of nature.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“Histories of the world omitted China; if a Chinaman invented compass or movable type or gunpowder we promptly “forgot it” and named their European inventors. In short, we regarded China as a sort of different and quite inconsequential planet.”
—W.E.B. (William Edward Burghardt)