Get Rommel by Michael Asher
Cassel Publishing
Historical
My wife bought me a box set of three books. The author is Michael Asher, ex-paratrooper and special forces in the British Army. One of the books I will be reading is a best seller. This book, Get Rommel, isn’t a best seller. At least not by what I have read.
The book covers the creation of special forces during the second world war. They mention their first attempt at using the forces… or should I say the mis-use of forces. He only included this story so that he could introduce some of the players in the “Get Rommel” mission.
Some characters? My gosh, no such luck. It seems to me that anyone who may of had even a small part to play in the mission had their brief history given. I don’t mind getting some background on the major characters but Asher gave little histories on dozens. So much so that I was wondering at points was this supposed to be an exciting historical novel or some dry thesis for a masters diploma. In the end I would say it was a thesis not a novel.
When you think of special forces you think of highly trained, highly motivated professional soldiers. Perhaps in the future they have become that model. In this book it was more like the mis-adventures of Spanky and the Gang.
After reading this book I was tempted to shelve the other two books in some dark corner of the basement. I guess I will try one more book to see if his delivery of a story improves. Though I have to admit, after that first one it has been weeks since I even wanted to read anything at all. If I had to rate this book, one star is bad and five stars was excellent, I would be hard pressed to give it a half star.
Here is my sketch of Rommel.
Commander of the Africa Corps - General Erwin Rommel
Bummer about the book. That’s disappointing.
Hey – is the sketching a new thing you’re up to? Or just new to me?
I believe ” Getting Rommell ” was the reason for the North African campaign. I’m not a history buff – you can correct me if I’m wrong. All I know is the history that I have already lived. Rommell was somewhat like El Quaeda – they couldn’t catch him. The United forces chased him all over the desert. What I know came from my commanding officer at Malton Bombing and Gunnery School. He was a Wing Commander repatriated from that campaign. He told stories about the hardships they endured—mostly in antiquated equipment. They got all the discards and outdated stuff from the European conflagration—like old Wellington Bombers that would almost not take off. This guy’s name was Sandy Yule. I can remember walking into his office one day during a thunder storm and found him under the desk—anything that sounded like a bomb or a shell freaked him out. A lot of those guys paid a high price by having their nerves messed up. You still hear some of that from the USofA today, involving Viet Nam Vets.
Correction–I said Malton Bombing and Gunnery School –wrong–it was Malton Air Navigation School. The Bombing & Gunnery School was at Jarvis. We shared the flying facilities with the Civilian Air Facility, which is now known as Pearson. That’s history.
Patti: I could never draw. I would always try but never get anywhere. Then last October I found a book on how to sketch (it was supposed to be a future Christmas present) and I decided to give it another try. Since then I have tried my hand at 100-150 (200?) sketches. Sometimes they come out fairly good, others… argh!
I have done a few sketches and put them at the-artist.christianmuse.com and have also, as you can see, placed a few on my blog. Part of what I want to do is draw political cartoons. I do want to go much further than that though.
Don: The allies still held Tobruk but the main force was in Egypt. They were preparing for a major offensive to push the German forces east and eventually out of Africa. On the night before the offensive began the plan was to capture/kill Rommel and to destroy aircraft at another field. The plan was a complete write-off. The major offensive? The book didn’t cover much more than it started and was still proceeding at the time the special forces limped back to Egypt.
Joe, I like your sketch. I think you are getting better at it with practise.