Lessons Learned: Tunisgrad

Professor Saul David, one of Britain’s foremost military historians, restores Tunisia to its rightful place among the decisive battles of the Second World War with his new book Tunisgrad. With Guadalcanal in the Pacific and Stalingrad in Russia, the campaign in North Africa was one of three crushing Axis defeats in early 1943 that changed the course of the conflict. Unlike the others, however, historians have tended to dismiss it—at the time the Americans even called it a “sideshow.” In fact, the campaign ended Axis sea power in the Mediterranean, destroyed 2,400 enemy aircraft (40 percent of the Luftwaffe’s strength), and led to the surrender of more than 250,000 German and Italian troops—an even larger capitulation than Stalingrad. It was also the first campaign fought by Anglo-American forces together, forging the partnership that would carry the Allies to ultimate victory. David, acclaimed for Crucible of Hell and Operation Thunderbolt, combines forensic analysis with gripping narrative to show why the German public itself named the disaster “Tunisgrad.”