Customer Reviews

Long Range Desert Group (Greenhill Military Paperbacks)

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

 

 

This is as candid and forthright an account of life in the LRDG as you will ever find. Kennedy Shaw wrote this book in 1943 as the exploits of the LRDG in North Africa were coming to a close and the story flows with a freshness that time has not diminished.

This book is about one of the more interesting groups from WWII. And it does a very good job of describing living in that group and some of the actions they partook in.
But it doesn't provide much context for what they did. Very little about how their actions worked with what was happening between the armies in North Africa and why what they did helped so much.
So if you want to know what life was like in the LRDG, this book is good (not great). If you want to know why what they did mattered - there's not much here.

Great book written by someone who was there. Many of the logistics taken for granted by todays special operations groups were thought up by these guys. Interestingly most of the force was made of of individuals from the Commonwealth and not England. For more detailed information go to Long Range Desert Preservation Group on internet.

Kennedy Shaw's history of the early days of the LRDG is both fascinating as a historical document and very relevant in its observations no the relationships of mutual respect that developed between the allied soldiers and the local Arab population of the North African Desert. The authors oppinions are alway candid, the writing is straightforward, the book is a very good read and the maps are sufficiently accurate to make cross referencing with "Google Earth" a fascinating possibility.

Peter Stevens

Too much of the book reads like undigested after-action reports. The book no doubt was gripping at the time of its publication in 1945, but inclusion of some information that Kennedy Shaw omits for security reasons and a clearer sense of narrative drive would greatly help the book. It was written much too close to the events it describes.