Operation Acrobat

It was discussed on 9 and 13 January 1942 by the Chiefs of Staff and representatives of Middle East Command (General Sir Claude Auchinleck).

The Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Alan Brooke, wondered if the operation "was on" because of the delays in the capture of Cyrenaica (following Allied victory in Operation Crusader) because it could not be carried out for six weeks, during which Axis reinforcements could flow into Africa from Italy.

[1] The planning of Operation Acrobat is depicted by a propaganda film Tunisian Victory (1944).

Acrobat was intended as an accompanying operation to Operation Gymnast, a proposed Allied invasion of Vichy French North Africa (Morocco and Algeria), to which Churchill was trying to persuade the American leaders to commit.

Acrobat ceased to be feasible after Auchinleck's forces, defeated by Erwin Rommel at the Battle of Gazala, retreated to El Alamein in Egypt, but Operation Gymnast, now renamed Operation Torch, began in November 1942.