Book Review: TAKE THESE MEN by Cyril Joly

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While re-reading BRAZEN CHARIOTS, Robert Crisp's memoir of serving in a tank regiment during Operation Crusader (you can read my review of Crisp's book here), I noticed a passage where he mentioned a comrade at the time, Cyril Joly, who went on after the war to write a novel about their experiences. Going to Amazon (of course) and doing a search for Joly, I found his novel - TAKE THESE MEN - and immediately ordered myself a copy.

This is one of the best war novels I've ever read. TAKE THESE MEN is a massive, epic story that takes the reader across the breadth of the North African desert, over more than three long years of war. The British first fight and defeat the Italians, only to face - and be initially defeated - by the Afrika Korps, followed by several years of nearly Trench War-like back and forth, contesting the same expanses of desert over and over again, fighting in amongst the wreckage of previous battles.

While both Crisp's and Joly's works are equally enjoyable, TAKE THESE MEN is much longer, probably three times as long, and much, much vaster in scope. While Crisp's memoir covers the battle one day at a time, Joly's work can often pass through weeks or months in a single chapter, but that in no way diminishes the intensity of its narrative. It is also worth noting for the technically-inclined tread-heads reading this, that Joly's main character fights in no less than four different tanks over the course of the war: the A9 Cruiser, a captured Italian M13/40, an M3 "Honey" Stuart, and finally, an M3 Grant medium tank. Joly does an excellent job of depicting combat with all four tanks, and how they each stacked up against the German panzers and anti-tank guns.

If you have any interest in the Desert Campaign of WW2, this book is a must-read. Although it is out of print, it does appear that you can acquire used copies here and there, and one hopes it'll eventually cycle back into print some time soon. If you can locate a copy, it is definitely worth adding it to your to-read pile, and if you're a student of WW2, this should be required reading.