Road to Tunis. By A. D. Divine. (Collins. ios. 6d.)
Triumph Over Tunisia. By T. H. Wisdom. (Allen and Unwin. 8s. 6d.) NEITHER of these books attempts to cover the Tunisian campaign as a whole. Mr. Divine is a war correspondent who gives an objective account of his own experiences, mainly with an American Combat Force. The chief value of his book lies in his description of the initiation to modern battle of the unit to which he attached himself- " C " Company, lot st Tank Destroyer Battalion. We can follow the fortunes of this company from Oran to Kasserine. There is then a brief interlude in which Mr. Divine returns to his own element, the sea, before the book ends with a short account of the taking of Tunis and Bizerta and the surrender at Cape Bon.
Wing Commander Wisdom sets out to tell the story of the air war in Tunisia. His first chapter deals with what he calls the " dress rehearsal " at Dieppe. The remaining chapters cover the period from the initial landings in North Africa to the final victory. The author was a Press Officer attached to R.A.F. Headquarters in North Africa. He is thus able to present a reasonably complete picture of the many types of duty which the R.A.F. had to undertake. His greatest virtue is that he shows us that the deeds of the R.A.F. were performed by men of flesh and blood. He writes well of the men he knew as friends and wisely leaves us to fit in for ourselves the part ,that the air war played in the great combined operation that the Tunisian campaign was.
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