This addition to the Images of War series concentrates on the 7th Panzer Division during the war with France in 1940. At the time, this unit was led by a fairly unknown major general named Rommel. Rommel was very much an enthusiast of fast moving armor, feeling that tanks could break through the enemy's initial defenses then run rampant just behind the enemy's front line. In this way, he could disrupt their logistics train, leaving the defenders in dire straits for lack of materiel.

Rommel was quite successful in this tactic and though slowing somewhat to allow the infantry to catch up, was able to cover a before unheard of amount of territory in a very short time. Indeed, from the original breakthrough in the Ardennes, his division covered the northern part of the country, cutting off Allied forces and eventually worked his way south down the coast. It is here that his reputation was formed and why he was later sent to North Africa. But that is getting a bit ahead of things.

This volume specifically covers the first part of the division's operations in France during 1940. That is the initial invasion phase and his rapid movements as the division swung to the north in an effort to cut off British and French forces and bottle them up in a pocket around Dunkirk. In line with other books in this series, it is mainly a photo book with many of the images in here photographed by Rommel himself using a Leica camera given to him by Joseph Goebbels. Thanks to this we see a number of images in series, at times taken on the move. Rommel was not a general to lead from the rear so he was frequently under fire with several times men standing next to him being killed while he came through unscathed.  This author includes a more extensive historical background than some others and this is not concentrated in the start of each chapter, but goes throughout the book. This is in addition to the image captions, which are always interesting. In all, this is another excellent addition to a fine series and one that I can easily recommend to both the historian and modeler alike.

September  2024

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