Desert War

MR. HILL, a young American war correspondent, gives a firsthand description of the ebb and flow of desert fighting in North Africa last winter. His account covers the British offensive, which began in November, and the retreat to positions near the Egyptian border in January. It does not describe the resumption of fighting last June and Rommel’s advance to the lines around El Alamein. There are some excellent descriptions of the vast desert, littered in spots with masses of wrecked tanks and trucks, and Mr. Hill conveys the sense of constant danger and uncertainty in the tank warfare, which is more like a naval engagement than a struggle between land armies, with the units of the two sides often becoming inextricably intertwined. He had his own fair share of narrow escapes from death or capture, and he writes entertainingly and informatively about the leaders and men of the Imperial forces with whom his work brought him into contact. He is handicapped, as he frankly recognizes, by the obligations of reticence which war imposes on the active field correspondent. But one gathers that the British setbacks have been largely due to the following causes: superior range of the German field guns, lack in the British High Command of a genius in desert warfare like Rommel; some slackness in assuring long lines of communication and digging in immediately after victory. With Egypt’s fate still poised in the balance, the book is decidedly timely. W. H. C.