Customer Reviews

Iron Hulls Iron Hearts: Mussolini's Elite Armoured Divisions in North Africa

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The Italian Army in World War II has been treated almost as a joke. It is rumored that when the Nazi Foreign Minister said to Churchill - "You will be facing not only us but also the Italians." Churchill replied, "That's OK, we had them on our side last time, you're welcome to them."

Rommel, on the other hand, spoke of them quite differently. During the famous "Desert Fox" actions in North Africa, Rommel had more Italian troops and more Italian armor than he had German. Rommel's comments were that Italian troops were properly led they were as capable as any. Italian generals were better as friends of Il Duce than they were as fighting people.

The Italian Littorio division did very good work at Tobruk, Gazala, and El Alamein. The Ariete division performed a dramatic day long stand at El Alamein effectively styming Allied plans to encircle and destroy the Axis forces. The Centauro division was brief but important in the American defeat at Kasserine Pass.

It is nice to see that this book, and a very few others, are beginning to show a side of the Italian Army not normally seen.

This book fills a void in WW2 histories by explaining almost all of the actions of the Italian Armoured Divisions during the North African campaigns of WW2.
The book gives a good account of units actions with some excerpts from witness's and also tells when new equipment and tanks became available.
Without any doubt this is the most comprehensive account of Italian units actions i have read, tactical maps are there for most important battles and in 2 colours! (which is much nicer than b&w). Some very good high detail b&w photos are in the book, some i've never seen before, and sharp line drawings of the major Italian tanks.
I would deduct 0.5 stars if i could because i would have liked more indepth analysis(data tables) for the Italian guns, ammunition and tanks performances. The very short tanks data appendix in the book has some silly errors that any experienced person will immediately see so it is a bit dissapointing in that respect.

Iron Hulls, Iron Hearts is Mr. Ian Walker's telling of the Italian Armored Divisions in WWII, mainly their contributions in North Africa but also their performance prior to North Africa. In this book, Mr. Walker is attempting to dispel the accepted fact that Italian armored divisions were 2nd rate in comparison to the German and British ones. To present his case, Mr. Walker opens by telling the development history of Italian armored forces from post-WWI thru the Spanish Civil War. Attention is paid to Italy's ability to wage modern war (lack of critical resources to develop and maintain an armored force), their development of armored forces; specifically their failure to stay up with other European tank designers, and the development and employment of armored tactics in Ethiopia, Spain, and the Balkans. In this section, Mr. Walker shows how at times the Italians were leaders in the art, but usually they were following the British and Germans.

The heart of the book deals with the performance of the Italian Armored Divisions in North Africa. Mr. Walkers does a good job providing a basic description of the different battles, including a generalization of the forces employed and the how they performed. Mr. Walker usually provides us with the forces the British had present at a given battle, however, Mr. Walker usually does not provide us with a description of their tactical situation unless it was challenging for the Italians. Battles covered range from the opening of desert warfare all the way to the collapse in Tunisia.

Throughout the book, Mr. Walker talks about how British and German forces bad mouth the Italian forces performance in North Africa. However, despite Mr. Walkers claim, he fails to provide direct references to German/British forces bad mouthing the Italian Armored Forces. While the complements Mr. Walker does provide us with aren't always glowing (Rommel providing an off-handed complement, the British mistaking Italian armor forces for Germans), Mr. Walker does fail to show us that the Italian armored forces were viewed in a negative way by the British and Germans (yes, Italian infantry units were usually viewed very poorly by both German and British forces, however my readings from other historians tends to support that Italian armored forces were viewed as either average or above average, especially when compared to their infantry forces).

My conclusion on this book: Mr. Walker has put together a very good telling of an area that is often overlooked by historians and readers of history. The campaign in North Africa is often overlooked past the battle for Tobruk (Gazala) and El Alemain (most people are familiar with the British attack, not the Axis initial attacks). Yes, the specifics of the Italian units is also overlooked by most people, mainly because they focus on one of the more famous units. Because of this, I'd rate this book a solid 4 star book (out of 5). I can't give it more than four stars because of the typos and the fact that Mr. Walkers conclusion was weakly stated (Mr. Walker tells us during the battles how great or not the Italians performed. What he failed to do at the end of the book was to bring these mini-conclusions together into one piece that sold how well the Italian Armored Divisions performed). With a stronger conclusion (summarizing their battle successes), this book could have easily been worth 4.5 stars and would have the nod to 5 for Amazon purposes!

When people think of WWII in North Africa they tend to think of the German, British, and American armies with the Italians as a minor side show. Walker's book fills in a significant gap in the forces involved in that theater by providing a military analysis of the Italian forces without falling back on the clich's that grew from the conflict. He does not, and cannot, argue that the Italian army in WWII was great; he does put the army in its appropriate strategic and political context. In fact the first few chapters of the book provide a contextual analysis for the army in North Africa so that you can understand why the Italians did poorly, but at the same time know why they did well given their constraints -- something often overlooked in a theater where Rommel, Montgomery, and Patton made their names and became larger than life.

One thing to keep in mind is that the focus of the book is on the three Italian armored divisions that fought in North Africa -- Ariete, Littorio, and Centauro. This is not bad given that this was a theater that required mobility to fight and survive. Following the contextual analysis the balance of the book is a straight forward military history that describes and analyzes the performance of these divisions first as Italy fought alone against Britain, then as Italy fought with their German allies against Britain and then the Americans in Tunisia.

Enfin une étude obejective sur un sujet peu connu. Le fait qu'un Anglo-saxon l'ait conduite est encore plus remarquable. Voilà un ouvrage détaillé et agréable à lire, même si on possède un anglais moyen. Un incontournable!

As the author says in his book, many military historians ignore or complete underrate Italy's contribution to the war in North Africa. In fact, it was the Italians who provided most of the Axis forces in North Africa, especially at the beginning of Rommel's counteroffensive. Poorly equipped by the standards of Germany, Britain and the U.S. the Italians nonetheless made war with what they had. The Italians might have been defeated but when well-led they fought as well as any WWII soldier.

Ian Walker really brings to life the difficulties encountered by the Italians, the deficiency of their equipment and (most important of all) WHY their equipment was deficient. Walker goes beyond the stereotype of the Italian soldier and then goes beyond THAT in way of explaination as to how and why he was in the predicament he was in in Africa. Anyone interested in the desert war will want this book.

This is an excellent work on the Italian armored divisions in North Africa, told from their point of view. It shows not only what the Italians had to work with, but why it was so little and so poor when compared to the Germans, US and British tanks and anti-tank equipment. The only problem I had with it was that after reading all the amazing successes pulled off against incredible odds, you have to wonder just HOW they lost! But that would be true I suppose about any work told from a certain viewpoint.

"Iron Hulls Iron Hearts" is not footnoted, so it is impossible to verify the extraordinary claims made by the book. The bibliography shows that no archival or primary research was done.

"Iron Hulls Iron Hearts" claims that the book is to address the perceived bias of English-speaking sources. Yet the author fails to discuss this in any meaningful way - he merely makes assertions of lack of balance. If one is going to write a book accusing historians of a perceived lack of balance, then it is incumbent on that author to at least provide a discussion of the sources he used. This is not done.

Indeed, the assertion of selective reading and lack of balance can be laid at "Iron Hulls Iron Hulls". For example, on page 101 the author writes that the Official Histories show bias because they do not state that it was the `Ariete' Division which overran a New Zealand battalion. "It seems that the constant deluge of British propaganda about Italian military incompetence both during the war and ever since made the New Zealanders, even in 1953, reluctant to admit that the `incompetent' Italians were responsible for inflicting one of their most embarrassing defeats." This reviewer advises readers to look at the New Zealand official history for themselves - it is available at [...]. The reader can check for himself the credibility of the author's claim. Indeed, in other parts of the NZ Official History, remarks are made on the extremely tenacious resistance made by 9th Bersaglieri Regiment, which undermines the author's contention that the Official Histories were apparently biased (see page 293 of the NZ Official History). This suggests some rather selective research from the author of "Iron Hulls and Iron Hearts".

Much of "Iron Hulls Iron Hearts" is simply so implausible as to cast serious doubt over the entire accuracy of the book. For example, pages 153 to 154 describe Operation BERESFORD in such an inaccurate and grabled fashion that this reviewer was at loss to understand what action "Iron Hulls Iron Hearts" was actually trying to refer to. From "Iron Hulls Iron Hearts" one is left with the impression that the Italians won a minor success, capturing 22 prisoners. In reality, the attack by the Maori Battalion took captured 108 Italians and resulted in the deaths of up to 500 Italians when the Maori Battalion broke through to the transport echelons - something somehow overlooked by the author. The bibliography of "Iron Hulls Iron Hearts" includes the history of Cody "28 (Maori) Battalion", so it was apparently read by the author. That the author has omitted such important details raises very serious questions over the credibility of this book. (Readers of this review can make their own minds up: [...]

From pages 156 (Alamein) onwards, the book's lack of balance and lack of research become all too apparent. The number of Sherman tanks described in actions (and apparently lost to Italian fire) is far beyond what is credible, and it is apparent that the author of the book has taken Italian claims completely uncritically. For example, "Iron Hulls Iron Hearts" claims that 8th Armoured Brigade at El Agheila had 80 Sherman tanks and lost 22 Sherman tanks in the battle. This is, to be blunt, laughable. In fact, 8th Armoured Brigade had nothing like that number of Sherman tanks, and the actual British losses in the battle were 3 Crusader tanks and 1 Grant tank from the Staffs Yeomanry and a single Scout Car from the Sherwood Rangers - a number of separate British accounts describe a heroic but suicidal attack by a numbr of Italian tanks which resulted in the destruction of 13 Italian tanks whose wrecks were verified after the battle. It is obvious that the Italian claims of 22 Shermans destroyed is considerably exaggerated. Yet "Iron Hulls Iron Hearts" accepts these ludicrous claims uncritically, and bizarrely describes this as a "minor success" and a "sharp lesson on 8 Armoured Brigade".

The author claims to be trying to provide a balanced account. To do so would require a proper assessment, comparing conflicting Italian and British accounts and reaching a fair and balanced conclusion based on the strength of the evidence. This, after all, is the basis of history. As such, "Iron Hulls Iron Hearts" cannot be regarded as history.

Italian Armor performance is finally getting the appreciation it deserves, particularly for how -well- "Ariete" performed in the Crusader battles in 1941. I'd say it was probably the equivalent of British Armored divisions, at least 2nd Armored, around that time. To get the full story, combine this book (Amazon gives you a price break) with "Iron Arm", which discusses the development of Italian armor.

Now someone needs to do a similar reassessment of Italian artillery...

Disappointing -- the author dwells at some length on the courage of the Italian soldiers (which he establishes), but fails to address effectively the serious organizational shortcoming which put them in some totally untenable situations. Too many iterations of the same thing -- Italian tanks meet British tanks/artillery, and are destroyed. Would have benefited from a little more discussion of the Italian Army's organization, officer-enlisted relations, food/clothing/shelter issues (all of which compromise combat effectiveness).