Overview

'Terrific – full of drama … it has profoundly altered my understanding of the Second World War' PATRICK BISHOP FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF SKY WARRIORS AND SBS COMES AN EPIC HISTORY OF THE ALLIED VICTORY IN NORTH AFRICA DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR. On 8 November 1942, British and American troops invaded French North Africa as part of Operation Torch, the largest amphibious operation of the war to date. The Germans responded by flooding troops into Tunisia and the stage was set for one of the most decisive clashes of the war. For months the outcome hung in the balance. The Allies failed to capture Tunis before Christmas, and early in the New Year the legendary German commander Erwin Rommel ( the ‘ Desert Fox ’) inflicted a series of crushing defeats on inexperienced American troops in the mountain passes of central Tunisia. But once the two Allied armies – the First and the Eighth – had joined hands in southern Tunisia in early April, the defeat of Axis forces was inevitable. The end came on 13 May when the remnants of the First Italian Army surrendered to British troops in northern Tunisia, leaving the Allies ‘ masters of the North African shores ’. It was, with Guadalcanal in the Pacific and Stalingrad in Russia, one of three Axis defeats in early 1943 that changed the course of the war. Historians have recognized the significance of the others, but not Tunisia which they have either ignored or characterized ( as the Americans did at the time ) as a sideshow. Yet it ended Axis sea power in the Mediterranean, destroyed more than 2,400 Axis aircraft ( 40 per cent of the Luftwaffe ’ s strength ), and resulted in the surrender of over 250,000 German and Italian troops, more than were captured at Stalingrad. Such was the scale of their defeat that the German public wryly dubbed it ‘ Tunisgrad ’. It was the first campaign fought by the Anglo-American alliance, and would determine how and where the Allies would fight for the rest of the war. It was where America first brought to bear the full weight of its industrial strength, and where the Allies learned, after early setbacks, how to defeat the Germans with a combination of air, land and sea power. It featured many of the great commanders of the Second World War, including ‘ Ike ’ Eisenhower, George S. Patton Jr, Omar N. Bradley, Harold Alexander, Bernard Montgomery and Erwin Rommel. But the campaign ’ s chief significance is that it extinguished any lingering hopes in Italy that the war could be won and led, inexorably, to the dissolution of the Axis in Europe. By destroying the Axis it marked, for Hitler, the beginning of the end. Tunisgrad is the first comprehensive 360-degree history, told from the perspective of all the combatants, and ranging in focus from politicians and senior commanders to ordinary servicemen fighting in and over the mountains of Tunisia, and across the Mediterranean. Using a variety of first-hand sources, it restores the campaign to its rightful place as a defining moment of the war

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9780008653828

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Reviews

PRAISE FOR SKY WARRIORS 'Fascinating and absorbing… On every occasion the men battled heroically and often achieved far more than could have been expected given the mayhem and handicaps around them… What emerges from this compelling tale of organic evolution and frequent recklessness is the indomitable and pioneering spirit of those involved and how often their courage and daring was badly squandered by those further up the chain. It is very much the men’s characters that form the beating heart of this book – eccentrics, mavericks, ridiculously brave but also very human too…. The Red Devils were mostly young men, as vulnerable as any other soldier. Yet what they achieved, as David makes clear in this hugely entertaining book, was remarkable' Daily Telegraph, James Holland (*****) ‘In the past the story of paratroopers has been told as an adjunct to wider campaign histories, which diminishes their extraordinary contribution. David, a gifted military historian, instead knits all those stories together into a single continuous narrative, told in the words of those who were there. He starts with the birth of the airborne force in bleak 1940 and ends with the last glorious days of the war. Along the way there are thrilling victories and ghastly tragedies… David recounts battles with enthralling detail, never from a detached distance. He specialises in a worm’s-eye view of the war' The Times

Author Information

Saul David is a historian, broadcaster and the author of several critically acclaimed works of fiction and non-fiction. His history books have been shortlisted for the Westminster Medal for Military Literature and variously named a Waterstones Military History Book of the Year and an Amazon History Book of the Year. He is Professor of Military History at the University of Buckingham.

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