After their major defeat in France during mid 1940, the next major area of operations for the British Army was in North Africa. Initially just against the Italians, the British did fairly well. It was when the Germans got into the act with Rommel and the Afrika Korps that things started to get hairy.

Fighting in the desert required a very different way of doing things than what had been faced in Europe. There was basically no where to really hide and just about all movement was easily spotted due to the lack of dense vegetation and by the amount of dust that was kicked up my moving vehicles. Men and equipment were at the mercy of an unrelenting climate that was extremely hot during the day and cold during the nights as the desert heat quickly vented to the atmosphere.

It was in the desert when the majority of Commonwealth forces were able to group together. This included Australians, Indians and New Zealanders. These units had to learn to work together and to operate in the desert, a job that most of them learned with great success. It is also an arena in which movement was paramount. British armor had a tough time of things as they had basically two kinds of armored vehicles. Quick and lightly armored cruiser tanks, and slow and heavily armored infantry support tanks. German and to some extent Italian equipment was somewhere in the middle of that.

But the Germans has a major tactical advantage in that they used combined arms where the infantry was combined with armor and where one went, so did the other. This was not the case with the British who often sent infantry into battle with no tanks support and had tanks rushing ahead of infantry only to get cut off and destroyed by German anti-tank guns. It was a painstakingly slow learning progress for the British who seemed to forget all of the lessons of the battle before. It was not until Bernard Montgomery took over from a quick succession of commanders that the British finally got the message and started pushing back the Germans.

Author Tim Moreman tells the story of the group of men who eventually became known as the Desert Rats, a name that stuck with the British 8th Army through following campaigns in WWII and beyond. Each of the books in this series have a set order of things. We look at a bit of background, how the troops were recruited, trained and equipped. How these men integrated with each other is also part of the series as is their life on campaign and a look at some of the more telling battles and what was learned from them.

It is not a history of the war in the desert, but an excellent look at what it was like. Thanks to some great period photos and the superb artwork or Steve Noon, we get a glimmer of the hardships these men faced and how they were overcome. Another superlative title in the series and a book that I can easily recommend to you.

December 2011

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