The Rising Tide: A Novel of World War II Read Online Free PDF

Afrika Korps.
    On February 12, 1941, Rommel arrives in Tripoli, in western Libya.
    Almost immediately, Rommel changes the landscape of the war in North Africa, and the British are sent reeling back toward Egypt. But Rommel receives neither the resources nor the cooperation of his Italian superiors, and the British begin to fight back. Throughout the rest of 1941, the campaign swings in both directions, momentum changing hands, Rommel’s audacity and superior tactics balanced by his inability to match the British in numbers and avenues of supply. Regardless of Rommel’s shortcomings, including his tendency to separate himself from his own headquarters, his successes overshadow his mistakes. The legend of the “Desert Fox” begins to grow, and even the British share Hitler’s high regard for Rommel and his tactics. To the British parliament, Winston Churchill remarks that Rommel is “a very daring and skillful opponent…a great general.”
    On December 8, 1941, Rommel learns that the Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor. He knows that America’s entry into the war will help the British immeasurably. As word reaches him of German setbacks in Russia, Rommel realizes that Hitler’s vast dreams may not be attainable. Rommel begins to understand: unless he can destroy the British who confront him and conquer North Africa, Germany cannot win the war.

PART ONE

The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out and meet it.
    THUCYDIDES

I would rather be the hammer than the anvil.
    ERWIN ROMMEL

1. THE DESERT RAT
    THE LIBYAN DESERT
MAY 27, 1942
    T hey huddled in the chill, encased in hard steel, waiting, energized by rumors. Behind them, to the east, the black horizon was visible, silhouetted by the first glow of sunrise. The wireless radio was chattering, the voices of nervous officers far behind the line, the men in tents, who pored over maps, unsure, powerless to do anything about an enemy who might be anywhere at all.
    They had climbed into the tank at the first sign of daylight, each of the four men finding his place, their commander perched higher than the rest, settling into his seat just beneath the hatch of the turret. It was still too dark in the west, and the narrow view through the prism of the periscope was too confining, and so he stood, his head and shoulders outside the hatch. The long, thin barrel of the two-pound cannon was just below him, pointing westward, where the enemy was thought to be. He stared until his eyes watered, tried to see the horizon. But it would not be there, not yet, not until the sun had given them enough light to distinguish dull, flat ground from the empty sky.
    The air was sharp and cold, but that would not last. Once the sun rose, the heat would come again, and the infantry, a mass of men waiting far behind their armor wall, would seek whatever shelter they had, waking the insects and the scorpions and the snakes. The tank was as good a shelter as a man had in the desert, but there was a price for shade. The thick steel made a perfect oven, and the men would man their posts and glance instinctively toward the hatches, hoping for the faintest wisp of breeze. He blinked, wiped his eyes with a dirty hand, annoyed at the crackling intrusion from the wireless.
    “Turn that off!”
    “Sir, can’t do that, you know. Orders. The captain…”
    He ignored the young man’s protest, stared out again. The sun would quickly rise, nothing to block the light, no mountains, no trees, no rolling terrain. In a few short minutes he could see flecks of detail, an uneven field pockmarked by small rocks. There was a shadow, right in front of him, beneath the barrel of the two-pounder. It was his, of course, the low, hulking form of the tank. It makes us a target, he thought. But, then, the Germans are in the west, will have to attack straight into the rising sun. We’ll be able to see them first, certainly. Stupid