« Foxbane II » John Schettler

This volume is the second of three that will present all the campaigns of the famous General Erwin Rommel. In this alternate history of WWII, the Germans have crossed through Spain and seized Gibraltar, and also occupied both the Canary Islands as well as Malta. General O’Connor is never captured, and now leads the British 8^th Army in Libya, while Montgomery takes charge of British forces involved in Operation Torch. That operation is very different here, as the Western Med is closed to Allied shipping, and they cannot land at either Oran or Algiers. In volume I of this trilogy, Foxbane, Rommel had chased the British all the way to the Egyptian border when a strange event in 2021 has a decided influence on his war in the desert. A modern day British Armored Brigade is displaced in time in the southern deserts of Egypt as nuclear war bereaks out in 2021. After the shock of finding themselves in the midst of WWII wears off, they head north, like knights from the Round Table arriving in the nick of time to save British fortunes in the desert. Rommel is shocked by their sudden appearance on his flank at the battle of Bir el Khamsa, and his offensive into Egypt is soon transformed into a long retreat to Tobruk. He struggles to adapt his tactics, at Tobruk, and then on his Gazala Line defensive position, before finally being forced back to Mersa Brega. In this second volume, Rommel’s unknown nemesis, which the Germans now call the British “Heavy Brigade, meets its strange fate at Tobruk, and soon Rommel finds he can again fight his war on equal terms with the British. As the Allies land at Casablanca in Operation Torch, the war widens to Morocco and Algeria, while a resurgent British Army presses Rommel’s retreat through Tripoli toward the Mareth Line. There Rommel joins Kesselring and plans a dramatic counterattack against a new foe, General George Patton. Then, Hitler shocks the Allies when he unleashes Operation Phoenix, aimed at Baghdad, Damascus, and the promise of …