Being there . . . . in 1942 when Britain and the United States had to prove to “Uncle” Joe Stalinthat the main Western Allies were deadly serious about relieving the Soviet Union of the Hitlereastern juggernaut on Moscow’s doorstep. With earnest western invasion planning along theFrench Coast still more than a year away, cross-Channel landings, beset by all sorts ofoperational and logistical problems, to say nothing about pilot and aircraft shortages, ourPresident Roosevelt gave the near-desperate order to launch Operation Torch, American trooplandings on Moroccan and Algerian beaches. Joe, forever unappeasable and suspicious, hinteda dull thank-you smile, but was skeptical of any “relief” value Americans would have on hisEastern fronts in November of 1942. Certainly, they might keep the Germans from crossing theVolga at Stalingrad. But how would fighting in the sands of North Africa keep the citizens ofsurrounded Leningrad from starving to death? How would elements of the American army andits growing USAAF occupying the mountains and foothills of western Morocco turn the Germantide in western Russia?OSPREY PUBLISHING, JUST IN TIME FOR THE CHRISTMAS GIFT-GIVING SEASON, OFFERS ASPIRITED, RIVETING ACCOUNT HOW IN LESS THAN 11 MONTHS THE UNITED STATES ARMY AIRFORCE GREW FROM ITS SMALL BEGINNINGS IN MOROCCO AND ALGERIA TO BECOME FORBRITAIN HER MOST IMPORTANT ALLIED PARTNER IN THE MEDITERRANEAN DURING THESUMMER OF 1942 IN PILOTS AND AIRCRAFT. BRITAIN, OF COURSE, WAS ECSTATIC – – SHE HADTO READY HER PEOPLE AND THEIR SONS AND DAUGHTERS FOR THE FORTHCOMING LANDINGSALONG THE NORMANY COAST. AND WHAT A SPECTACLUR JOB THEY DID! MEANWHILE, OURBOYS TOOK ON THE AXIS FORCES THAT DOMINATED THE NORTH AFRICAN ENTIRE SOUTHERNSHORE OF BENITO MUSSOLINI’S “MARE NOSTRUM”, OUR SEA, FOLLOWED BY THE INVASIONAND OCCUPATION OF SICILY. NO STUDY ON THIS SUBJECT HAS EVER BEEN FULLY EXPLORED ASMUCH AS THIS BRILLIANT, MOST WELCOMED, NEW TREATISE.Reviewed and highly, highly recommended by Don DeNevi as a perfect Christmas gift forboth a deserved recipient and the self . . .“TURNING THE TIDE – – The USAAF in North Africa and Sicily”, by Thomas McKelvey Cleaver,Foreword by Richard P. Hallion. OSPREY PUBLISHING/Bloomsbury Publishing; 2024, 320 pages,6 ¼” x 9 ½”, hardcover, highly illustrated with unpublished photos, maps, $32. Visit,www.ospreypublishing.com; E-mail, info@ospreypublising.com.A major masterwork, Tom said recently from his home in Encino, California, “It’s my hopethat my effort, ‘Turning the Tide’, will change the sad truth that the amazing records set bythose brave, courageous pilots and crews who fought in one of the most difficult combatenvironments on the planet is worthy of recall and acclaim.”In short, author Cleaver has provided readers of rare World War II research with a study longwanted, long waited for, and, to our delight, accomplished to the final sentence with care,
clarity, and scholarship. Because he is a published, well known, military writer for the past 40
years, we’ve all read his other best-selling OSPREY titles, such as “The Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club”(2021), “Going Downtown”, (2022), “The Cactus Air Force” (2022), and “Clean Sweep” (2023).Meanwhile, we should note Tom has served as a screenwriter for various Hollywood studios,i.e., the cult classic, popular, “The Terror Within”. In addition, he has worked as a supervisingproducer on a number of TV and cable series. He served in the U.S. Navy in Vietnam.“TURNING THE TIDE – – The USAAF in North Africa and Sicily”, all 320 pages of it, shines as asubstantial achievement, a tribute to the author’s narrative skill, and our resoluteness of
interest to complete the reading to its end.
