Afrika Korps (The Pan/Ballantine Illustrated History of World War II)

by Kenneth John Macksey and Major K.J. Macksey

Book Overview

New York: Ballantine Books, May, 1968. 1st Printing, Trade size paperback, 8vo (8.25 inches tall), 160 pages. Bibliography. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345097246
• ISBN13: 9780345097248
• Release Date: January 1972
• Publisher: Pan Macmillan
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 1.11 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Good overview of this famous formation

Kenneth Macksey was one of Britain's foremost military historians in the latter half of the 20th Century. He typically wasn't the best writer, but he was excellent when it came to things like details: dates, times, numbers, etc., and he also did a good job with the course of a battle or campaign. He understood the things that faced a commander on a battlefield (having been one himself) and he dealt intelligently with the challenges that they faced. This current book is part of the legendary Ballantine War Series. These were inexpensive, short books with lots of photos that described various aspects of warfare. At first, everything dealt only with World War II, but later they decided to expand things to other conflicts, though they never got far beyond a few books on Viet Nam and World War I, as far as I know. The books were divided up by category: battles, campaigns, weapons, leaders. This is the first of the campaign books, covering the life and death of the formation popularly known as the "Afrika Korps." The formation is always linked with Erwin Rommel, the unit's commander pretty much throughout its history. The author doesn't go into detail covering the commander much, though, merely discussing his career in World War II prior to the North African desert in one sentence, and only briefly mentioning that he had served in World War I against the Italians. He also spends little time discussing the various formation changes and modifications that the Germans made with the two Panzer Divisions that served as the backbone of the Afrika Korps over most of the life of the unit. Instead, the bulk of this book discusses the battles the unit fought in, and their accomplishments. This is a good, short overview of the Afrika Korps and its campaigns. The unit has many admirers, and it should, being the only sizable German formation from World War II not accused at some point of serious war crimes. The book is slightly hampered by when it was written. In 1968, the British breaking the Enigma code wasn't known yet. As a result, the author has alternate explanations for what we now know were the products of Ultra: Montgomery uses deduction to guess when Rommel will attack at El Alamein, and guesses what's going to happen at Mareth and Wadi Akarit. Of course in all of these instances, there was no dispute in the Allied camp, because Montgomery was given the German radio intercepts, and knew what the plan was as soon as Berlin did. I enjoyed this book. It's not the most detailed in the world, but it has good photos and a well-written, if concise, text. I would recommend it, as I probably would all of these Ballantine books.