Things to see and do Tobrouk

Inside the cemetery, a marble plaque documents the words of General de Gaulle in London on 18 June 1942: " The world knew France when, at Bir Hakeim, a radius of its revived glory came to caresser the bloody front of its soldiers. " At the end of the main aisle, a Lorraine cross monument bears two marble plates where one can read the story of the fighting conducted by the free 1 st French brigade in Bir Hakeim (80 km south of Tobruk) on 27 May 1942, and from 1 to 10 June 1942. These high military facts are exhibited in a very pedagogic way in the small museum adjoining the cemetery. This cemetery houses the remains of the first four French soldiers killed in Cyrenaica in January 1941, those of eight French soldiers killed in Kufra in 1941 and those of French soldiers previously buried in Bir Hakeim cemetery whose geographical isolation made maintenance difficult. The cemetery was renovated in 2002.

The German cemetery is housed in a large square in ochre stone with four towers of angle. The inhabitants of small, precarious homes built at the foot of the fort will come to you. There is an austere atmosphere maintained by the hisses of high voltage lines and the breathing of the oil plant located below. In the center of the court, four kneeling angels bear the «bassin of the eternal flame», while on three sides the names of the German soldiers killed in Tobruk pass on a black background under the arcades. Climb on the ramparts of the fort to enjoy a complete panorama on the bay and the town of Tobruk, with, at the forefront, oil facilities.

It was the place where Rommel kept its headquarters. He was also occupied by General Montgomery during the British occupation of the city. There are presentations of the guns and tanks and the remains of the American plane WW 2 Lady be Good, which crashed in the desert and whose crew perished after a long march in the Sahara; the bodies were discovered only in the early 1950 s.