Desert Rats

▪ World War II

byname  of The Seventh Armoured Division, 

      a group of British soldiers who helped defeat the Germans in North Africa during World War II. The Desert Rats, led by General Allen Francis Harding, were especially noted for a hard-fought, three-month campaign against the more experienced German Afrika Korps, led by General Erwin Rommel (“The Desert Fox”).

      The term “Rats of Tobruk,” a moniker applied by the Nazi propagandist broadcaster William Joyce (“Lord Haw-Haw”), referred more generally to any of the Allied troops (including Australian, British, and Polish units) who defended Tobruk, Libya.

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