Operation Compass

By: John Latimer

The first battle of the desert war, Operation Compass was originally envisaged as a spoiling attack, combined with a reconnaissance in force to disrupt the Italian forces that had advanced into Egypt... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1841762806
• ISBN13: 9781841762807
• Release Date: June 2001
• Publisher: Osprey Publishing
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.84 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.8" x 1.0" x 7.2"

Customer Reviews

A Good Study of an Overlooked Campaign

Note that this is a reprint of a book in Osprey's Campaign series (#73). It is a good example of the series, which are usually solid, and some times excellent, studies of particular battles and campaigns. Histories of the North African campaign too often start with the appearance of the Afrika Korps in April 1941. That does a disservice to the British: their victory over the Italians in 1940 was an amazing achievement that deserves more attention. Jon Latimer provides us with just that. Although not up to the standard of some of the more recent Osprey Campaign books, Latimer does a good, solid job. Despite the opinion of another reviewer, Latimer gives a fairly unbiased view of the Italian army and its performance, although his focus is more on the British and he could have made more use of Italian sources. The problem is that the shortcomings of the Italian army -- the leaders, shortage of modern and effective weaponry, inadequate logistics and poor intelligence -- negated the courage of the soldiers. By comparison the British were much better off in each of these areas. The Italians would later solve some of these problems, but too late for this campaign. Latimer follows this up with the actual battles, showing how (despite a smaller force) the British concentrated superior numbers at the point of attack and then exploited victories to the full. The maps do a good job of illustrating the actions, although a map showing in detail one of the attacks on the Italian camps at the start of the campaign would have been very useful. The careening pursuit across western Cyrenaica, ending in the decisive battle of Beda Fomm is very ably described and compares with anything Rommel achieved. The main drawback is analysis. Except for the obligatory comment that the British missed their chance to drive the Axis completely out of North Africa, we are left to draw our own conclusions. There are some interesting ones to draw. The British 7th Armored Division was used strictly to exploit victories achieved by other forces, following pre-war doctrine, rather than as a versatile combat unit like the panzer divisions. Organizational shortcomings (too many tanks, not enough infantry and supporting arms) were already making themselves felt. At least one tank charge was shot to pieces by Italian artillery, their best arm, something that would be repeated all too often in 1941-42. Despite this shortcoming, Latimer does an admirable job of covering the first North African campaign. I would buy this book again in a heartbeat.