“NAVAL BATTLE OF CRETE 1941 – The Royal Navy at Breaking Point”, by Angus Konstam,Illustrated by Adam Tooby. OSPREY PUBLISHING, Bloomsbury PUBLISHING Plc: 2023, 96 pages,71/2” x 10”, softcover; $25. Visit, www.ospreypublishing.com.Writes author Forczyk in “DESERT ARMOUR”, “Deserts tend to excite the imaginations ofarmored tacticians who envision the wide-open spaces as perfect for swiftly manoeuvring largemechanized forces. However, both Allied and Axis commanders found their pre-warassumptions surrounding warfare challenged by the opening campaigns in the desert”.Thus begins one of the best books on tank warfare in North Africa in WW II yet written. Apartly mechanized Italian army was destroyed in the first three months of the war. It was thenthe Deutsches Afrika Korps entered the theatre with a battle-proven doctrine for conductingcombined arms warfare, tanks that were effective with well-trained leaders and crews, only tofind itself undone by a combination of Rommel’s unsuitability for independent command andinsufficient Axis theatre logistics. The British Army started the campaign with two differentconcepts of how to use armor – either as fast, independent mechanized units capable of rapidmanoeuvre or as plodding tools on infantry support. Both concepts worked well against theItalian Army, but then frequently misfired against the Afrika Korps.In this book, Bob has examined all these forces and operations to provide a focused analyticaccount of armored operations in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Morocco, placing the emphasis onthe tactical and operational-level perspectives of both Allied and Axis combatants.In “NAVAL BATTLE OF CRETE 1941”, Angus Konstam chronicles how in April 1941, followingthe Axis invasion of Greece, the British Mediterranean Fleet was ordered to evacuate Alliedsurvivors, many of whom were taken to Crete. The Luftwaffe established itself in airfields onthe Greek mainland, then formed plans to invade Crete by air and sea under the cover of 500fighters and bombers of the Fliegerkorps VIII. Facing them were a small and scattered garrisonon the island, a handful of under-strength RAF squadrons and the hard-pressed warships of theMediterranean Fleet. What happened next was a costly, but ultimately inspiring, naval battle inwhich Royal Navy crews were placed under intense strain.World-leading maritime historian Angus Konstam uses period photographs, superbbattlescene artworks, detailed maps, and an authoritative narrative telling the enthralling storyof how Allied ships failed to repulse the Axis invasion convoys bound for Crete. He then coversthe successful evacuation of troops from the island, all the while under relentless Luftwaffeattack. “Despite a heavy butcher’s bill of dozens of Royal Navy ships lost and damaged, andhundreds of Luftwaffe aircraft destroyed, the Royal Navy Mediterranean Fleet would live to
fight another day”, Angus writes.
