The End of the Beginning: From the Siege of Malta to the Allied Victory at El Alamein

From Publishers Weekly
After collaborating on the documentary film series Finest Hour and its companion book, Clayton and Craig return with this chronicle of the Allies' travails during the dark year of 1942. They begin with an introduction that describes major wartime figures, as well as a number of veterans who appear throughout the book, including British tank officer Peter Vaux. Events at the highest command levels, involving Churchill, Roosevelt and Allied generals, leaven tales of battle action that feature the veterans' accounts. Action at Knightsbridge Box (an important British position) and Bir Hakim (held by the Free French), for example, cuts to a nurse's experiences on the island of Malta, under aerial siege by the Axis, and those of an RAF pilot in action in the Middle East. A U.S. Ranger trains in England and later sees action at the Dieppe landing (a rehearsal for D-Day two years later), while the famed British convoy to Malta, Operation Pedestal, is featured. Although the emphasis is on the fighting in North Africa, largely from an Allied perspective, the authors do a nice job with German intercepts of messages of an American military attach‚ in Cairo that provided valuable intelligence to the Axis, an incident that often goes unremarked upon. Churchill's meeting with Stalin in Moscow is followed by the British victory over the German Afrika Korps at El Alamein, with continuing emphasis on individual experiences. An epilogue covers the later careers of the individuals featured throughout the book, important political figures and generals as well as individual soldiers and airmen. In all, this account does a good job with a lesser-known period of the war, but it assumes the reader's interest, rather than creating it.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
The title of this book is taken from a speech by Churchill after the British finally defeated Rommel's Afrika Corps in October and November 1942, at El Alamein, the decisive battle in the struggle for North Africa. Up to that point, Britain had endured setback after setback. By the middle of 1942, all of the Mediterranean's northern shore and central bastions, save for Gibraltar and the beleaguered island of Malta, were lost. It seemed that the only place where Allied forces could "get at" the enemy was in North Africa; even there, Rommel, the "Desert Fox," had repeatedly frustrated British forces. Clayton and Craig are both authors and producers of television documentaries. They have extensively utilized first-person accounts of participants and weaved them together with original research into facets of the campaigns often neglected by scholars. The result is an absorbing chronicle of warfare that conveys the constant sense of tension and the occasional sense of exhilaration experienced by men in combat. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
Patrick O'Donnell Author of Beyond Valor and Into the Rising Sun The End of the Beginning captures an often overlooked period in World War II history, immersing the reader in the strategic campaigns of the period and, most importantly, capturing the compelling stories of those in the eye of the storm. Clayton and Craig's book is not only an entertaining contribution to World War II history, it is also an important one.

Oxford Times The first-person formula of a mosaic of stories gives a swashbuckling narrative feel to actions that sweep through both North Africa and Europe. It is a juggernaut of a book that never stops rolling, immediate in its impact and underpinned with great humour.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Spring 1942. Throughout the world, the Allies retreat before the inexorable march of Fascism; Singapore falls to Japan; the Wehrmacht lays siege to Leningrad, captures the Crimea, and advances on Stalingrad; Greece and Yugoslavia fall to the Nazis; the American Pacific Fleet lies in ruins; and in Libya, Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps faces off against the British Eighth Army. Over the next twenty weeks, a series of battles fought in North Africa's Western Desert will become the pivot point of the Second World War." "In part, The End of the Beginning is the story of those battles: Rommel's surprise attack on the Gazala Line in May 1942, the fighting retreat of the British Eighth Army under General Sir Claude Auchinleck, and the fall of Tobruk after a siege lasting 240 days; the blockade of Malta and the Pedestal convoy that finally relieved the island; Auchinleck's brilliant last-ditch battle to hold Rommel at El Alamein, Rommel's final attacks at Alam Halfa Ridge, and then Montgomery's destruction of the Afrika Korps at the second battle of El Alamein in November." But, like the best works of popular history, The End of the Beginning is more than a simple chronicle of battles won and lost, of the decisions of statesmen and generals. Its stories are told from the perspectives of the men and women who spent these pivotal months on the very tip of the Allied spear, with raw, personal experience documented on virtually every page: Peter Vaux, the intelligence officer of the British 7th Armoured Division, plotting the defeat of the Afrika Korps in a desert wadi named El Alamein; American merchant marine cadet Lonnie Dales sailing in the Pedestal convoy in an attempt to relieve Malta and, after his ship is sunk, volunteering to man the antiaircraft gun on the crippled oil tanker Ohio; Flight Lieutenant Ken Lee flying ground support missions by day, exploring the fleshpots of Alexandria by night; Alex Szima from Dayton, Ohio, one of Darby's original Rangers, joining the

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

After collaborating on the documentary film series Finest Hour and its companion book, Clayton and Craig return with this chronicle of the Allies' travails during the dark year of 1942. They begin with an introduction that describes major wartime figures, as well as a number of veterans who appear throughout the book, including British tank officer Peter Vaux. Events at the highest command levels, involving Churchill, Roosevelt and Allied generals, leaven tales of battle action that feature the veterans' accounts. Action at Knightsbridge Box (an important British position) and Bir Hakim (held by the Free French), for example, cuts to a nurse's experiences on the island of Malta, under aerial siege by the Axis, and those of an RAF pilot in action in the Middle East. A U.S. Ranger trains in England and later sees action at the Dieppe landing (a rehearsal for D-Day two years later), while the famed British convoy to Malta, Operation Pedestal, is featured. Although the emphasis is on the fighting in North Africa, largely from an Allied perspective, the authors do a nice job with German intercepts of messages of an American military attach in Cairo that provided valuable intelligence to the Axis, an incident that often goes unremarked upon. Churchill's meeting with Stalin in Moscow is followed by the British victory over the German Afrika Korps at El Alamein, with continuing emphasis on individual experiences. An epilogue covers the later careers of the individuals featured throughout the book, important political figures and generals as well as individual soldiers and airmen. In all, this account does a good job with a lesser-known period of the war, but it assumes the reader's interest, rather than creating it. (Mar. 11) Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Sixty years ago in the North African desert, General Montgomery's British 8th Army defeated General Rommel's famed Afrika Korps at a small railroad stop called El Alamein. Clayton and Craig team up for a second time (after Finest Hour: The Battle of Britain) to offer this compelling history, which folds personal accounts of the battle into descriptions of the overall Allied strategy and 8th Army operations. The authors do an excellent job of keeping the wide-ranging story coherent. One of at least a half dozen books on the battle published in less than a year, this volume is clearly one of the best, although libraries owning Jon Latimer's Alamein may not need both. Well organized and smoothly written, Clayton and Craig's book is highly recommended for larger libraries and academic and military libraries.-Charles M. Minyard (Ret.), U.S. Army, Mt. Pleasant, MI Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews