Erwin Rommel

Erwin Rommel was already known to Allied servicemen as the Desert Fox before he launched his drive for Tobruk in the spring of 1942. Rommel's seizure of the port seriously threatened the Allied position in the Mediterranean region.

An exciting account of a little-known, yet vital part of World War II, the Allied effort to blockade Axis forces in North Africa with a relatively small number of planes and submarines included some of the war's most spectacular air battles, and opened the way to the attack on Fortress Europe from the south. This is the first book-length treatment of the crucial struggle to cut Axis supply lines in the Tunisian campaign of 1942-1943, a battle often ignored or played down even by official historians. The campaign marked the first big U.S. victory against the Axis powers and served as a proving ground for several top Allied commanders. This study fills an important gap in the history of the war, reevaluating the development of Allied airpower and the role of Italy in the campaign.

Focusing on 45 military leaders from four continents and 13 countries, spread across four centuries, this study paints, for the first time, a collective, comparative portrait of high-ranking military officers. The authors develop an interactional theory of military leaders, stressing the interplay between sociodemographic variables, psychological dynamics, and situational factors. They examine age and birthplace, socioeconomic status, family life, ethnicity and religion, education and occupation, activities and experiences, and ideologies and attitudes. They find military leaders to be a remarkably coherent and homogeneous group of men propelled toward the military by a combination of nationalism, imperialism, relative deprivation, love deprivation, marginality, and vanity.

"Gordon's book reveals an impressive mastery of the archival and secondary sources available on the subject. His writing is crisp and interesting, yet sober and scholarly at the same time. The daring and resourceful men of the British desert forces have found a historian whose ability to tell their story matches their ability to create some of the most daring and imaginative operations of World War II. This is an extraordinary book about extraordinary soldiers." Military Review

Analyzes the development of tanks from World War I through Operation Desert Storm with vivid accounts of major figures and battles.

Desert Battle is a study of the nature of desert warfare with special attention to the evolution of weaponry, the organization of forces, the impact of the desert environment on the ability of those forces to sustain battle, and the influences of the desert on battle tactics. The work concentrates on seven campaigns, from Bonaparte's adventure in Egypt in 1798-1799 to the 1991 Gulf War. Each campaign is discussed in relation to its political-military background, with focus on leadership, the forces available, and the weapons at their disposal. A narration of each campaign follows, ending with an evaluation in relative degrees of the leadership, weapons, and tactics and the long-run consequences of the campaign.

In the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East some of World War II's greatest legends were born as Erwin Rommel the "Desert Fox" led his Afrika Korps against the "Desert Rats" of the British 8th Army led by Bernard Montgomery. Both sides recruited local people to their cause, winning stunning victories but planting the seeds of conflicts to come.

This exceptional work draws on exclusive interviews with Rommel's German-Italian translator, covers the Mediterranean grand strategy of both sides, evaluates the impact of the campaign on today's North Africa and Middle East, and gives a complete description of operations in Syria and Iraq.

The dramatic text, which includes the first English language coverage of the Italian-Australian atrocity controversy, is backed up by rare photos taken by veterans of the action, new maps, and complete orders of battle for both Axis and Allies, including the most accurate listing of Italian units yet available.

Californian Jack Greene has written Mare Nostrum: The War,in the Mediterranean, War at Sea: Pearl Harbor to Midway, Ironclads at War 1854-1891 and numerous articles on World War II and naval topics.

Bersaglieri veteran Alessandro Massignani has written numerous books and articles on Italy's role in World War II, including Alpini e Tedeschi sul Don.

Covering the Battle of Normandy from the German point of view, this book examines the impact the "Desert Fox" had on the build-up of German defenses in Normandy and elsewhere, dubbed by the Propaganda Ministry as the "Atlantic Wall". Rommel realized how deceptive this term was upon his inspection of German defenses in 1943. Convinced that the Allies knew more about the actual state of German readiness than many of his officers did, the Desert Fox set out to fortify German positions. In the weeks prior to D-Day, Rommel analyzed Allied bombing patterns and concluded that they were trying to make Normandy a strategic island in order to isolate the battlefield. Rommel also noticed that the Allies had mined the entire Channel coast, while the naval approaches to Normandy were clear. Realizing that Normandy would be the likely site of the invasion, he replaced the poorly-equipped 716th Infantry Division with the battle-hardened 352nd Infantry Division on the coastal sector, but his request for additional troops was denied by Hitler. Mitcham offers a remarkable theory of why Allied intelligence failed to learn of this critical troop movement, and why they were not prepared for the heavier resistance they met on Omaha Beach. Mitcham uses a number of little-known primary sources which contradict previously published accounts of Rommel, his officers, and the last days of the Third Reich. These sources provide amazing insight into the invasion of Normandy from the German perspective. They include German personnel records, unpublished papers, and the manuscripts of top German officers like General of Panzer Troops Baron Leo Geyr von Schweppenburg, the commander of Panzer Group West. The Desert Fox in Normandy also contains a thorough examination of the virtually ignored battles of the Luftwaffe in France in 1944. Rommel, a master of mobile warfare, developed a cunning defense strategy for Normandy and fought a brilli

Hoodwinking Hitler is a you-are-there, action-packed account of the intricate deception plans and operations that misled German intelligence professionals--and Adolf Hitler--about the timing and locale of the June 1944 Normandy invasion of Fortress Europe. Every facet of the monumental deception plan is treated in depth; diplomacy, electronic codes and code-breaking, intelligence, counter-intelligence, double agents, the French underground, camouflage, strategic feints, global whispering campaigns, and tactical sacrifices. The success of the Allies in this campaign of deception led to victory in one of the most successful military campaigns in history.

Praise for Meeting the Fox "Orr Kelly has dramatically brought to life the desert war by masterfully weaving the view of higher headquarters with the pathos of the foxhole. Meeting the Fox takes the reader on a gripping journey from North Africa's beaches and drop zones, the practically forgotten disaster at Sidi bou Zid, to the final battles in Tunisia. Meeting the Fox is destined to rank among the best narrative histories on the American experience in North Africa." -- Patrick O'Donnell, author of Beyond Valor and Into the Rising Sun "An almost bullet-by-bullet, shell-by-shell account, Meeting the Fox offers riveting personal experiences from those who fought the Axis forces during the desperate campaign for North Africa." --Gerald Astor, historian and author of A Blood-Dimmed Tide and The Greatest War, Vols. I-III As their unproven commanders struggled to match wits with the wily Desert Fox, 100,000 poorly equipped, undertrained, and inexperienced GIs battled their way across North Africa. Hobbled by inferior weaponry and an inexperienced officer corps, these green but courageous citizen soldiers clashed head-on with the fabled German Afrika Korps and its legendary commander, Erwin Rommel. Meeting the Fox tells the unforgettable tale of the men who transformed themselves, in the heat of battle, from a poorly organized army of convenience into a relentless and unstoppable fighting force.

This single volume reference contains over 1000 key figures who took part in the history of the period militarily or politically and is fully cross-referenced with pertinent bibliographical information.