I enjoyed this novel about a U.S. Army lieutenant taking Colonel Erwin Rommel on a tour of Civil War battlefields several years before World War II began. It fits into several of my reading interests and I recommend it to others who have interests in the American Civil War, World War II and its desert warfare and the code wars.
The fact that the author revealed the Germans had broken a code used by the American military attache in Cairo was interesting. This is a little known fact to most people. Actually, the Italians were the ones who secretly stole the code and passed it on to the Germans. Rommel used the American military attache's transmissions of British war plans to Washington to 'outfight' the British 8th Army on several occasions.
However, the author used literary license to make it appear the American lieutenant finally figured this out. The author has the lieutenant deduce this by finding out the Germans knew he was in North Africa. In fact, British capture of a German communication unit revealed to the British the Germans were decoding American transmissions. All this before the U.S. entered the war. How the British used this knowledge to trick Rommel in the 2nd Battle of El Alamein is another story.
Earlier in the book, the author has the lieutenant become renown in Egypt because he was able to figure out Rommel was going to stage a raid, based on Rommel's use of a Confederate general's tactics. Frankly, the lieutenant didn't need to deduce the Germans had the American code, as Cairo was a sieve for information, and if it was well known what the lieutenant did, then the many Egyptians supporting the Germans would have passed this on to German intelligence. So this was a hole in the author's plot which didn't make sense.
Still, it's a good story.
The fact that the author revealed the Germans had broken a code used by the American military attache in Cairo was interesting. This is a little known fact to most people. Actually, the Italians were the ones who secretly stole the code and passed it on to the Germans. Rommel used the American military attache's transmissions of British war plans to Washington to 'outfight' the British 8th Army on several occasions.
However, the author used literary license to make it appear the American lieutenant finally figured this out. The author has the lieutenant deduce this by finding out the Germans knew he was in North Africa. In fact, British capture of a German communication unit revealed to the British the Germans were decoding American transmissions. All this before the U.S. entered the war. How the British used this knowledge to trick Rommel in the 2nd Battle of El Alamein is another story.
Earlier in the book, the author has the lieutenant become renown in Egypt because he was able to figure out Rommel was going to stage a raid, based on Rommel's use of a Confederate general's tactics. Frankly, the lieutenant didn't need to deduce the Germans had the American code, as Cairo was a sieve for information, and if it was well known what the lieutenant did, then the many Egyptians supporting the Germans would have passed this on to German intelligence. So this was a hole in the author's plot which didn't make sense.
Still, it's a good story.
