Tanks Across the Desert

"Tanks Across the Desert" is a British tank sergeant's personal story of war. It gives a true-to-life picture of fierce armoured warfare in World War II, recreating the atmosphere of conflict and destruction encountered by one Allied tank crew in the bloody campaigns across North Africa and Italy. Sergeant Jake Wardrop joined the 5th Battalion, Royal Tank Regiment (5RTR) in 1937. He fought in France in 1940; in the Western Desert, Tripolitania and Tunisia; and then, until December 1943, in the invasion of Italy. Wardrop's battalion returned to the UK to prepare for D-Day and Jake took part in the great European campaigns of liberation in 1944 and 1945, only to be killed in action a few days before the end of the war. He kept a detailed and graphic record of each battle in which he was to take part from 1941 to 1943, compiling a personal diary which had long remained in the possession of his mother to whom he sent back extracts from time to time while on active service. This diary provides a vivid insight into Wardrop's many adventures with 5RTR and also serves as a battlefield record of his battalion.