North Africa Campaign Book

[Andreas1968]

ORIGINAL: rustysi

I wouldn't trust Bayerlein further than I can throw The Rommel Papers

Would someone care to expand on this statement. Was The Rommel Papers that bad of a book? I mean I read it some 40 years ago, but don't recall any glaring errors.

Just as an example, Bayerlein claims that half of the Panzer III in North Africa were still equipped with the 37mm gun.

He claims that the British left column forced back Ariete at Bir el Gobi (nothing could be further from the truth)

he claims that after the breakout from Tobruk the Germans restored the position.

Etc.etc.

All the best

Andreas

[spence]

I'd recommend "The Battle for North Africa 1940-43" by W.G.F Jackson along with "The Desert Generals" by Correlli Barnett. The former also details the campaigns in Ethiopia, the Levant and the Middle East in general and integrates them into the North African Campaign. The latter speaks in greater detail to the personalities involved and British Army politics. Both are good reads.

[John 3rd]

Echoing my Post on U-Boats, I just completed Jackson's above book. It was excellent.

Am 2/3 of the way through the Day of Battle and it is magnificent.

Thanks again for the choices guys!

[BBfanboy]

IMO the North Africa campaign hinged on the fate of Malta, so in addition to reading up on the land battles you must read about the convoys to Malta, the air defence of Malta, and the raiding of Axis supply lines by the subs and surface forces at Malta. Rommel's successes coincided with Malta's misfortunes and his retreats were directly due to lack of supply because of the raiders at Malta.

Malta Convoy convers a single convoy battle but what a battle it was! Heavy losses and heroic actions on the Allied side to get a few pitiful ships through and keep Malta in the war. The men of tanker Ohio should have all received medals. Stirring read that brings out the desperation, bravery and sacrifice.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

IMO the North Africa campaign hinged on the fate of Malta, so in addition to reading up on the land battles you must read about the convoys to Malta, the air defence of Malta, and the raiding of Axis supply lines by the subs and surface forces at Malta. Rommel's successes coincided with Malta's misfortunes and his retreats were directly due to lack of supply because of the raiders at Malta.

Malta Convoy convers a single convoy battle but what a battle it was! Heavy losses and heroic actions on the Allied side to get a few pitiful ships through and keep Malta in the war. The men of tanker Ohio should have all received medals. Stirring read that brings out the desperation, bravery and sacrifice.

warspite1

Not according to O'Hara. The amount of supplies (men and material) that didn't get through to North Africa was not that great. The problem was more to do with the amount of reinforcements and supplies available to Rommel rather than the amount lost. Remember too there was the problem of getting supplies from Tripoli and other ports to the front. Plus of course there is Rommel's inability to realise his situation..... or, if he did, to ignore it.

[Dili]

North African campaign hinged in the shear distance with one coastal road. Those that had industrial backbone to supply it will win: that mean air and naval superiority and many trucks and fuel. Transporting it to Africa was the least of the problems. They needed to transport it at least to Tobruk not Tripoli and then continue to supply it along the coast- But Axis never properly dominated Tobruk by air, sea.

The Axis - more precisely Italy- didn't had enough production of any of that. Worse Mussolini wasted trucks to Soviet Union invasion.

For the distances keep this in mind:

Warsaw to Moscow with several roads, several rails heads 1000km

Benghazi(not even Tripoli) to Cairo: 1000km - only one coastal road, no rail. Desert, no rivers, no cities, so no energy, no workshops even the more simple ones, no food , almost nothing to take. Everthing except some oasis water, needs to be transported.

[warspite1]

That is what I said above. This is one of the reasons why I do not agree with O'Hara's view of the Regia Marina's (RM) performance in WWII (although of course had Rommel acted more in accord with his circumstances, and the wishes of his superiors, only being able to get supplies to Tripoli would have been less of an issue).

The RM/Regia Aeronautica needed to be more aggressive (and the UK's decision to try and keep Malta in the war allowed this on Italian terms i.e. the Commonwealth forces had to enter Italian dominated waters). An early victory against an overstretched Royal Navy (RN) could have seen the RN with no choice but to withdraw, allowing the possibility for the Italians to use the ports of Benghazi or Tobruk for at least some of their supplies.

[geofflambert]

von Mellenthin wrote a bit about it from the German point of view. Wouldn't hurt to read it.