| Tobruk | 
 enlarge | Author: Peter Fitzsimons
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd
Category: Book
List Price: £19.99
Buy New: £15.23
You Save: £4.76 (24%)
New (4) Used (3) from £9.50
Avg. Customer Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 187411
Media: Hardcover
Edition: New title
Pages: 580
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.2
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.1 x 2.2
ISBN: 0732276454
EAN: 9780732276454
ASIN: 0732276454
Publication Date: June 28, 2006
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New. Shipped from UK Mainland. Delivery is usually 2 - 3 working days from order by Royal Mail, International Delivery is by Airmail.
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| Customer Reviews:
 a great book about auatralians & not the poms May 12, 2008
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
it,s good to read a book about the Australian Soldiers written by an Australian as all we here about is what America or Britain did in the war.
many other countries supplied soldiers , but rarely do you ever here about them & the British always have a way of getting the soldiers Slatered by their middle class gentlemen to look done on Soldiers from other countries as as cattle fodder
 Makes a good novel, pity about the history April 28, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Before I begin, if you are Australian then add one star, if you have never read a book about Tobruk add another star and if you like adventure novels with larger then life macho characters throw in a third.
Tobruk has an important place in Australian military history. Unfortunately most of the public when pressed on the matter can call up such stuff as 'Rats of...', Rommel and then with luck manage to name the correct war.
Fitzsimons to his credit has attempted to write a history book aimed at the people who do not read history. To his discredit he has let the good yarn get in the way with telling the unbias truth. The Australians in this book are Aussies, tall, fit, tanned, shirtless and filled with a laid back 'she'll be right' outlook. The English are Poms, stuffy, mildly pompous and secretly in awe of these colonial types. Okay, target audience is the Australian father's day crowd but then we start getting into the real fabrication.
I never finished this book. I picked it up several times and, being mildly well read on the campaign, read through Fitzsimons take on the various parts of the battle I was most familiar with. Historical figures now receive a half page describing their dreams the night before the drive foolishly and fatally into an Australian shell. Perfectly capable Field Engineer Coys are forced to rolling a few Eyetie aircraft bombs down the hill to make up for the demolition equipment Fitzsimons feels they lack.
Does Fitzsimons know what von Prittwitz was dreaming 6 hours before his death? Considering no mention of the Generals war diary let alone musing about his dreams has previously been known to exist the words 'made it up' do spring to mind. Does Fitzsimons honestly believe an Engineering Coy - whose role in military life is to either make it or break it - were lacking in basic explosives in what was a major supply center?
Even when Fitzsimons does use the standard well quoted sources they suddenly become literal conversations rather then the descriptive diary posts they actually where. Exciting reading if you are new to the campaign but mildly annoying if you have actually read his source.
Unless you know nothing about the battle then keep looking, there are better books out there.
 Good social history account of the battles of Tobruk June 8, 2007
2 out of 6 found this review helpful
If you like the Richard Holmes style mix of real acocunts and easy reading history (as opposed to detailed military analysis) you'll love this book. It gives a real feel of the "mateship" which bound together the troops holed up in Tobruk and allowed them to withstand a seige for over three times the time expected.
Parochial February 28, 2007
8 out of 11 found this review helpful
What a disappointment!After the many weeks delay -to find that this book was designed solely for the Australian audience.Padded by a journalist to contain 'human interest' stories about individual offspring of the participants-to find the NON-attributed variance of historical comment with other books-and to see how carefully the British presence at Tobruk is downplayed.I do not think this PADDED newspaper story should be distributed in the UK without a 'warning notice'.The first book I have ever bought from Amazon that was not worth half the price-and because I pre-ordered I paid the full one!
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