It may seem a bit odd to most of us, but, at least in the British Army, there was no dedicate ground recce group, each individual corps having to do what it felt was the best in this regard. It wasn't until 1941 that a Recce Corps was even established on paper and it was near the end of the year before any of these units deployed to North Africa for their first taste of combat.

One of the problems was the need for adequate equipment. Most armored cars of the time were basically civilian vehicles on which a considerable weight of armor plating was attached. This not only made for an ungainly looking vehicle, but stressed the chassis and components considerably. There also needed to be developed some combat tactics on how best to utilize these new units within the framework of the Army. Ultimately, these units were the spearhead of an advancing army, tasked with discovering how strong the enemy was, being able to get out of any sticky situations and relay the information found back to headquarters where it could be incorporated into battle plans.

This meant that they needed to be supplied with vehicles that could move quickly and yet were able to defend themselves and not be destroyed in the process of fulfilling their job. Through trial and error, viable vehicles were eventually supplied and the rest, as they say, is history.

Author Richard Doherty takes us through the development and deployment of these units through all the combat they saw during WWII. Most of it was in the Mediterranean and European theaters with only some use in the Far East during the Burma campaign. As with all of the books in the Elite series, this is as much about the uniforms and equipment used by these units as it is about the battles in which they fought. Thanks to a superb choice of images, most of which are shown here for the first time, and the excellent illustrations of Rob Chapman, we get a look at these men and how they appeared during their long years of war.

It is another fascinating Osprey title about a little-known portion of WWII and one that you will enjoy reading as much as did I.

March 2007

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