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Rating: 
Summary: little known gem of a war memoir by a great poet
Review: This book used to be extremely hard to find, so it's nice to see this edition and know that it's been reprinted since i read it in '82.Here's what makes this book so interesting: Douglas was a student of literature, British, so his perspective on being a tanker in WWII reflects an insightful sensibility. He fought in numerous campaigns in Africa (Alamein and on) before dying in Normandy shortly after being called back to active duty. Douglas is considered one of the finest war poets of WWII, but it's his descriptions of tank battles and the hot, concussive nature of it that is most memorable to me. This is the kind of war memoir that is often overlooked but rare in it's depth and scope.
Rating:
Summary: little known gem of a war memoir by a great poet
Review: This book used to be extremely hard to find, so it's nice to see this edition and know that it's been reprinted since i read it in '82. Here's what makes this book so interesting: Douglas was a student of literature, British, so his perspective on being a tanker in WWII reflects an insightful sensibility. He fought in numerous campaigns in Africa (Alamein and on) before dying in Normandy shortly after being called back to active duty. Douglas is considered one of the finest war poets of WWII, but it's his descriptions of tank battles and the hot, concussive nature of it that is most memorable to me. This is the kind of war memoir that is often overlooked but rare in it's depth and scope.
Rating:
Summary: Works as literature as well as hirstory
Review: Warning spoilers - This is a rare eyewitness account of fighting in a rare theatre written by a rare person; a poet. Keith Douglas is bored of recovering behind lines and disobeys orders in order to return to the front.
The highly interesting scenes that follow describe in economical spare, yet highly descriptive prose the tank battles in the various desert theatre's that seem so familar from the movies. The terrain and climate become characters as they should. Certain Brits really took to the desert in a way none of the Germans ever did. Terrific stuff and incredible details of something I thought was confined to WW1 when commonwealth troops get fed into a meatgrinder in classic tory cannon fodder fashion. This was a shock for me as an Aussie raised on the Gallipoli myth. It's poetic justice that the ' colonel Blimp' type responsible gets blown away as the desert fox becomes the hunted instead of the hunter.
It's not so neat what happens to poor keith but he does get a little cocky and you cant really blame him for thinking he's leading a charmed life. The Germans or Italians certainly mastered booby traps if not the back wadi's. They say that such a thin sliver killed Keith Douglas during the D-day landings that he looked completely unmarked. Made me wonder how close we came to not having the dynamite, ' Homage to Catalonia'.
There are several way's Hitler could have won the whole war and this was the famous ' end of the begining' of, perhaps the most fascinating one these.' A bloody close run thing.'
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