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Great and Bold World War II Raids

Khalid Elhassan January 3, 2025 16 min

Raid - Italian frogmen in manned torpedoes launched from submarine near Alexandria Harbor, by Ivan Berryman. World Naval Ships

12. A Desert Raid to Disrupt the Enemy’s Rear

British raiders from No. 7 Commando launched a surprise amphibious landing at Bardia, a small coastal town in eastern Libya near the Egyptian border, on the night of April 19-20, 1941. They were backed by a small tank contingent and supported by a small Royal Navy detachment comprised of a cruiser and three destroyers. Their mission was to disrupt the enemy rear by destroying an Italian supply dump and an artillery installation. Planning had started in January, 1941, when a 2000-man task force of Commandos, designated Layforce after its commander, Colonel Robert Laycock, was gathered in Britain and sent to Egypt, to train for special operations. An amphibious landing and raid on Bardia was to be their first mission. As seen below, it did not go smoothly: poor intelligence, poorer foresight by planners, and mistakes on the ground caused more losses than enemy action.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.