Breaking Rommel

BREAKING ROMMEL - The Struggle for Air Supremacy over El Alamein, July 1942

July 1942 saw the end of the Axis advance into Egypt. A heroic effort by a beaten but not defeated Eighth Army, supported by the Royal Air froce, first stalled and then forced Panzerarmee Afrika onto the defensive, just short of Alexandria.

The to-and-fro on the ground was mirrored in the air, with both sides seeking but failing to realise a strategic advantage that would deliver superiority over the battlefield, every day seeing hundreds of sorties in this struggle. In the end, just like the ground battle, it was costly stalemate.

Over 200 planes were shot down in air combat during the month, in addition to those lost to accidents and anti-aircraft guns, and numerous air crew were killed.

This book describes this air battle and serves as a memory to all airmen and ground personnel who fought and in particular those who died in it.

What is this book?  (by Andreas Bierman, ''The Crusader Project'', www.rommelsriposte.com)

''The book is a detailed, day-by-day account of the battle, covering ground operations and air battles. There is detailed information on Axis air strikes and their impacts, air attacks on naval convoys, the Allied bombing campaign against Axis supplies and the . We have been able to source over 100 pictures from a range of collections around the world, There are well over 20 maps, and we are making a detailed theatre-grid map available online through a QR code in the book to enable readers to place map references without destroying their eyesight in the process. We have commissioned some of these maps as well as some colour plates of the principal planes involved in the air battles from the very able Ben Skipper at Mclelland and Chase. Other maps are from war diaries and archives. There is basic index of names, places and key terms available at this link, as well as an overview map at this link. There are also 25 tables and 8 figures. 

For now, we want to note that we think we are breaking new ground in the way the air war in North Africa is written up, building on recent work such as the Mediterranean Air War series which we aim to add to, not supercede, and very substantially taking this book beyond the already detailed and ground-breaking Eagles over Gazala by Michele.

Our focus is very much on the fighter battles, but we are also giving detailed treatment to the strategic night-bombing campaign on both sides, as well as to the air battle over the Tobruk-Matruh convoys. The air campaign is put clearly into the frame of the ground battles, as the two were inextricably linked. For example, for every day we have a detailed table of Axis strikes, tracking their real impact on the Allied ground forces, as much as is possible, by carefully linking to strike times to Allied unit war diary entries.

The book is written on a linear, daily structure, with each day covering the same items:

• Ground battle summary
• SAS raid (when they happened)
• Allied air summary
• Axis air summary
• Axis strike table
• Operations Day
• Anti-Shipping Operations (when they happened)
• Operations Night
• Other events
• Table of sorties and losses for the day''

Authors: Andreas Biermann, Marco De Poli, Michele Palermo

Publisher: IBN Editore (2026)

Description: 490 pages, paperback, 240 Χ 170 mm.

Condition: NEW COPY

Shipping weight: 1.1 Kg.

Tags: EL ALAMEIN, ROMMEL, NORTH AFRICA, RAF, LUFTWAFFE, EIGHTH ARMY