Forthcoming by Palermo et al: Breaking Rommel

[AndreasB]

Pleased to announce that work on the manuscript on Breaking Rommel - The Struggle for Air Supremacy over El Alamein. July 1942 has now finished and the book is with the publisher. Pre-orders not (yet) available, and I will advise the publication date when I have it. There will be an e-Book version.

This is the end of a project that took several years of detailed research and writing and re-writing by Michele Palermo, Marco de Poli and myself. We hope that the book will be available for the 84th anniversary of the battle in July 2026.

A word of thanks
We first off wanted to thank all our collaborators and the people who supported this project. Historical research of this nature is now a transcontinental endeavour. Without our friends in New Zealand, South Africa and across Europe and North America this book would not have been possible. There are too many people to name, you know who you are!

What will it be?
The final version of the manuscript is running at just under 500 pages. We have been able to source over 100 pictures from a range of collections around the world, There are well over 20 maps, and we are making a detailed theatre-grid map available online through a QR code in the book to enable readers to place map references without destroying their eyesight in the process. We have commissioned some of these maps as well as some colour plates of the principal planes involved in the air battles from the very able Ben Skipper at Mclelland and Chase. Other maps are from war diaries and archives.

We will also make an index of names, places and key terms available online (there’s a slim chance it might make it into the book). There are also 25 tables and 8 figures.

When we get closer to publication and pre-orders open we will make a sample chapter available. For now, we want to note that we think we are breaking new ground in the way the air war in North Africa is written up, building on recent work such as the Mediterranean Air War series which we aim to add to, not supercede, and very substantially taking this book beyond the already detailed and ground-breaking Eagles over Gazala by Michele.

Our focus is very much on the fighter battles, but we are also giving detailed treatment to the strategic night-bombing campaign on both sides, as well as to the air battle over the Tobruk-Matruh convoys. The air campaign is put clearly into the frame of the ground battles, as the two were inextricably linked. For example, for every day we have a detailed table of Axis strikes, tracking their real impact on the Allied ground forces, as much as is possible, by carefully linking to strike times to Allied unit war diary entries.

The book is written on a linear, daily structure, with each day covering the same items:

1. Ground battle summary


2. SAS raid (when they happened)


3. Allied air summary


4. Axis air summary

5. Axis strike table


6. Operations Day


7. Anti-Shipping Operations (when they happened)


8. Operations Night


9. Other events


10. Table of sorties and losses for the day

As always with the books by Michele, there is also a host of technical detail on the planes involved, in dedicated chapters, detailed statistics on claims and losses, a tabular overview of airplane availability and servicability and of course a large number of first-person testimonials from the fighter pilot reports on the engagements that they wrote up on their return from a sortie. There are also chapters discussing intelligence and logistics, as well as the run-up to the first battle of El Alamein.

What does the title mean?
Well first off, you cannot have a desert war book title without Rommel in it. More seriously though, the title alludes to Auchinleck’s order of the day issued to all ranks in Eighth Army on 25 July 1942.

Special order of the day

To all ranks Eighth army from C-in-C.

You have done well. You have turned a retreat into a firm stand and stopped the enemy on the threshold of Egypt. You have done more. You have wrenched the initiative from him by sheer guts and hard fighting and put HIM on the defensive in these last weeks.

He has lost heavily and is short of men, ammunition, petrol and other things. He is trying desperately to bring these over to Africa, but the Navy and the Air Force are after his ships. You have borne much but I ask you for more.

We must not slacken. If we can stick it, we will break him.

STICK TO IT.

(Sgd.) C.J.E. Auchinleck
General

At the end of 1st Alamein, Rommel’s Panzerarmee Afrika was not yet broken, but it had received a punch in the face that it would never recover from. But this had come at a huge cost to the Allied forces.

What will it look like? Please see the frontispiece and back and a sample page presented below.

[laurent14]

Hi Andréas,
I am in the starting blocks...