THE ROAD TO TUNIS

An English journalist, assigned to the American forces for the greater part of the North African campaign, David Rame has used every facet of his gifts for telling a story dramatically and making one feel and see the intimate details of background, setting, operation and personalities, thus filling in the broader scaled reports such as Springboard to Berlin (see P. 355). Successive graphic anecdotal bits, closeups of fighting, from the bloody taking of Oran, where the idea of Combat Command was tested out, with brief throwback to the brilliant achievement of the Algerian Convoy, he proceeds -- with Gen. Oliver's Tank Destroyer Battalion 500 miles through Algeria, and has full measure of heroic defeat and sharing in painful learning before the taking of Medjez, etc. Perhaps he is at his best in such handling of defeat (his book about Dunkirk -- The Sun Shall Greet Them -- has not been surpassed). Finally, after seemingly endless delay and setbacks, victory and Tunis.