Alamein
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4.7 • 3 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
El Alamein was the World War II land battle Britain had to win. By the summer of 1942 Rommel's German forces were threatening to sweep through the Western Desert and drive on to the Suez Canal, and Britain was in urgent need of military victory. Then, in October, after 12 days of attritional tank battle and artillery bombardment, Montgomery's Eighth Army, with Australians and New Zealanders playing crucial roles in a genuinely international Allied fighting force, broke through the German and Italian lines at El Alamein. It was a turning-point in the war after which, in Churchill's words, "we never had a defeat". Stephen Bungay's book is as much at home analysing the crucial logistics of keeping desert armies supplied with petrol and tank parts as it is reappraising the combat strategies of Montgomery and Rommel, and ranges widely from the domestic political pressures on Churchill to the aerial siege of Malta, key to the control of the Mediterranean. And in a chapter on "The Soldier's War", Bungay graphically evokes the phantasmagoric blur of thunderous cannonade and tormenting heat that was the lot of the individual men who actually fought and died in the desert.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
While providing the necessary information about Rommel and others before getting to the battle itself, Bungay (The Most Dangerous Enemy) provides the most limited coverage of these three books, yet competently contextualizes the battle's elements. One chapter is devoted to the character of the armies involved and the desert battlefield, covering aspects of the desert environment; soldiers' food; the hazards of the battlefield for different branches of service (infantry, artillery and armor); the culture and morale of British, German and Italian soldiers (along with their various motivations to fight); and relations between the ranks. Chapter eight, a succinct overview of the battle, makes an excellent, ready reference, without concentrating on any particular action. The book also includes a few nice asides about the larger war, to give the battle story some context, but it will appeal most to the initiated who want to quickly understand what happened and why in this corner of the war. The book has some careful descriptions of the relations between Allied commanders and analysis of their abilities, but is a bit short on the average soldier's view.
