to withdraw just as they were faced with encirclement. In this action the 2/13th Battalion suffered five killed and 93 wounded or captured. Two days after the action at Er Regima Pass, the 9th Division was ordered to fall back along the coast road towards Tobruk in what was later called the "Benghazi Handicap". Due to the speed of the Axis advance and the division's lack of transport, confusion reigned and part of the 2/15th Battalion, including most of its headquarters and its commanding officer, were captured. Siege of Tobruk Covered by rear guard actions at Er Regima and Mechili, the 9th Division reached Tobruk on 9 April 1941. The 7th Division's 18th Brigade had arrived two days earlier and together with a number of British artillery and armoured regiments and an Indian cavalry regiment, the 18th King Edward's Own Cavalry (now 18 Cavalry), they were placed under the command of Major General John Lavarack and ordered to hold the port for at least two months while a relieving force from Egypt was organised. The first engagement came on 10 April when an Axis force approached the port from the west but was repelled. The following day, Tobruk was effectively placed under siege when German forces cut the supply road to its east, encircling the Allied garrison. On 13 April the first major attack came when the German commander, Erwin Rommel, launched an attack against the 20th Brigade west of the El Adem road. This attack was beaten off, although that night a force of Germans with mortars and machine guns managed to break into the defences only to be counterattacked by a small group of Australians, including John Edmondson, armed with bayonets and grenades. For his part in the attack Edmondson was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross, the first of seven which were bestowed upon members of the 9th Division during the war. Over the course of the next six months the 9th Division and the rest of the garrison repelled repeated attempts by Rommel's forces to capture the port. The Australian defence of Tobruk was anchored on three factors: the use of the pre-existing Italian fortifications around the port, aggressive patrolling and raiding of Axis positions and the firepower of the garrison's artillery. Fighting from fixed positions, the Australian infantry successfully contained and defeated repeated German armoured and infantry attacks on the fortress. After the failure of the