The War Against Rommel's Supply Lines, 1942-43 (Stackpole Military History Series) Summary and Reviews

The War Against Rommel's Supply Lines, 1942-43 (Stackpole Military History Series)
by Alan J. Levine

The War Against Rommel's Supply Lines, 1942-43 (Stackpole Military History Series)
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Book Summary Information

Author: Alan J. Levine
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-03-10
ISBN: 0811734587
Number of pages: 240
Publisher: Stackpole Books

Book Reviews of The War Against Rommel's Supply Lines, 1942-43 (Stackpole Military History Series)

Book Review: Attacking Supplies Wins War
Summary: 5 Stars

Alan Levine's "The War Against Rommel's Supply Lines" (2008 reprint 230-page paperback) is a quick paced history for the Allies' defeat of the Nazi Afrika Korp. With six impressive chapters Levine recounts the Axis and Allied armies conflict for the entry to southern Europe.

Beginning with explanation for Malta's strategic importance (as an island for British submarine and air force bases amid Italian and German sea lanes for supplying N. Africa) the book meticulously describes Axis and Allied units compositions and strengths. Eisenhower's and Rommel's campaign strategies and unit battle tactics are presented along with analysis of their successes and failures. The author posits the occasional "if only" scenarios to broaden reader comprehension.

As the title suggests the battle for North Africa was as much about ending Nazi supply as it was fighting in the desert. As soldiers, tanks, canons, bombers, and air fighters warred across Tunisia and Libya, sailors, merchant marines, submarines, dive-bombers, and ships of all sizes battled in the Mediterranean. Keeping Rommel ill supplied helped towards Allied victory. Levine shows that attacking supplies wins wars!

Amid the many beneficial and interesting aspect of this history is Levine's ability to show the Allies' maturing and growing edges through the conflict. The US military did not arrive to N. Africa (November 1942) ready to fight. The British military quickly and carefully trained the Americans as they fought side-by-side. Also, the author correctly documents Vichy France's reluctance to fight the Nazis and its marginal help to the Allies once it defected, in stages, from Hitler.

This helpful history is well documented with 17 pages of endnotes, more than 25 period black and white photos illuminating Rommel's Afrika Korp, and five pages of bibliography. Unfortunately, only one map (of Tunisia on page vi) is provided.

The downside of this book is the author's ability to race from one portion of the campaign, and war, to another with little warning. Transitions are rarely used here. Such syntactical evasion presumes reader identification with the subject. Levine is written for those with some World War 2 North African campaign knowledge. (This might be detractive for the novice WW2 reader.)

This book is recommended to everyone with an interested in World War 2's North African campaign.

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