Tobruk 1941: Rommel's Opening Move (Praeger Illustrated Military History)

Osprey Campaign Series has produced several fine books. In a fairly short book paticular battles are outlined with supporting maps and pictures. Tobruk is a fine example of such a book. Military readers will be familiar with such descriptions as a major engagement between tens of thousands of combatants is decided at a point where only a few hundred soldiers actually fight. Such an engagement is the Battle of the Salient in April-May 1941 and it is well covered in the book. The defence of Tobruk was a monumental task, the Australian force under the command of General Morshead or Ming the Merciless as he was affectionally known by his men where asked to hold Tobruk for eight weeks. The siege lasted 8 months. In the Desert Was the few towns were of great importance and in paticular places such as Tobruk which had a harbor. The stand of Tobruk prevented Rommel from advancing further to Egypt. It was a monumental siege and became the very essence of all what the British and the Commonwealth stood for, a bull dog refusing to give in before the mighty Germans and for the first time the Germans could not find victory. It is a good book of its kind and goes through those eventful 8 months with much detail.

Like all books in the Osprey campaign series, this volume is meant to be an overview of a specific series of battles. In this, Jon Latimer does excellent work. As always, the format of the campaign series does well to give a feel for the campaign. Latimer even goes into some detail on the role of the antiaircraft artillerymen in Tobruk, a vital but often overlooked aspect of the siege. Overall, a good reference about Tobruk or a light read well worth looking into.

Latimer has done an outstanding job of compressing a large amount of information into the limited format of an Osprey volume. The reviewer (below) may have wanted a far fuller account, but if he has a way of including all of the information Latimer has conveyed *as well as* all the material he believes was missing in just 20,000 words then I suggest he contact Osprey immediately. Such an achievement would be remarkable. I wonder whether some reviewers are more interested in showing off their knowledge than in a reasonable assessment of the work in question.Given the limited scope of the Osprey format and the general nature of the series' reading audience, Latimer has done a superb job of outlining most of the important aspects of this campaign and of pointing the interested reader in the direction of further, fuller accounts. Highly recommended.