“Killing Rommel” is a historical fiction book by Steven Pressfield which takes place in the early 1940’s when General Erwin Rommel‘s (The Dessert Fox) troops were intent on capturing the Mid East oil fields in order to support Germany’s war machine in its attempt of world conquest. Stopping the Eighth Army was an essential and significant part of the Allies’ counteroffensive plan during World War II.
The story is rich in detail; the author describes the tanks, guns, trucks, tactics and more with a lot of passion and eye for the obvious and not-so obvious. The book introduces the legends of not only the LRDG, but also the contribution of the Special Air Service (SAS) as well as Popski’s Private Army – a group which I must read some more about.
Even though the details are sometimes exhausting, I forgot that I was reading a fictional account (even though the author maintained that the events were real, but experienced by several patrols) and felt as if I was reading an exciting history book about these daring raids.
The story is presented through the eyes of Lieutenant R. Lawrence Chapman (Chap) a fictional tank commander who was “loaned” to a famed commando unit called the Long Range Dessert Group (LDRG) to help asses the dessert for passable routes when the big invasion comes.
Chap quickly becomes friends with his the members of his new unit and meets some historical personalities which have since become legendary(Jake Easonsmith, Paddy Mayne, Ron Tinker, Nick Wilder, Vladimir “Popski ” Peniakoff and more). These personalities give historical authenticity to this fictional account of war. One of the group’s missions is to find out where Rommel is and call in an air-strike, hence the title of the book.
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World War II will always be great ground for historical fiction. And it's nice to see LRDG get some splashy fiction written about them. Hearing the book is detail rich shows promise.