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Get Rommel - Operation Flipper

$18.95

The Secret British Mission to Kill Hitler's Greatest General

Author - Michael Asher
Published in 2004 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, UK
SOFTCOVER, 302 Pages inc index
Size - 23.5cm * 16cm

By the summer of 1941 Erwin Rommel was Hitler's favourite general. Sent to North Africa to halt the British advance into Libya, he not only stopped the British offensive but drove them back to their Egyptian base. He seemed to be unbeatable on the battlefield, so the British planned to kill him.

On the eve of the next British offensive, Operation Crusader, a specially trained commando team landed by submarine behind enemy lines. Marching deep into the desert, they attacked Rommel's headquarters. At the same time, in its first ever combat mission, the newly created SAS parachuted sabotage teams close to the German airfields to knock out the enemy air forces on the ground.

Michael Asher reveals how these daring raids were practically impossible from the start - but the volunteer commandos and SAS men had no idea this was effectively a suicide mission. Poor planning and incompetence in high places was matched by fantastic bravery and brilliant improvisation that enabled a handful of the survivors to escape back to British lines and tell their story.

From Bob "Lucky" Laycock, the model for Evelyn Waugh's Lt. Col. Tommy Blackhouse, to the tragic Geoffrey Keyes, awarded a posthumous VC for leading the operation, Michael Asher investigates the true story of Operation Flipper: the plot to kill Rommel.

About the Author

A graduate of the University of Leeds, Michael Asher has served in the Parachute Regiment and in the SAS. He is one of the world's top desert explorers having covered almost 20,000 miles on foot and with camels and spent three years living with a traditional Bedouin tribe in the Sudan. A fluent Arabic speaker, he has won two awards for desert exploration, from the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. He now runs Lost Oasis Expeditions, offering small-scale, expert-led, real adventure expeditions in remote desert locations.

His thirteen books, including travel works, novels and biographies of T E Lawrence and Wilfred Thesiger, have been translated into ten languages. In 1996 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He has presented several documentaries for Channel 4 including, most recently, the controversial The Real Bravo Two Zero about the ill-fated SAS operation in Iraq. His book of the same name was a best-seller.

Illustrated with 8 pages of B&W photos