# Get Rommel! by Michael Asher



## mdh (20 Feb 2005)

Thought I would offer up a quick review of this book which I just finished, cheers, mdh

_Get Rommel! 
The Secret British Mission to Kill Hitler's Greatest General _ 

By Michael Asher, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 303 pages

I'm not sure about the rest of the folks here, but my first (adolescent) introduction to the famous British attempt to assassinate Rommel in 1941 came from the movies: the classic black and white 1951 biopic starring the suave and urbane James Mason (impersonating, somewhat implausibly, the gruff Swabian Panzer leader.)   

From what I remember (watching it as kid on afternoon TV), the Rommel film delivered up a good dose of action in the first ten minutes - featuring the sequential failure of _Operation Flipper_ (the official codename).

The British commandos attack (what was thought to be) Rommel's behind-the-lines HQ near the North African coast â â€œ but are quickly overwhelmed. One commando ends up lying wounded where he is confronted by one of his German captors â Å“Did we get him?â ? â â€œ asks the Brit.

The German soldier looks down, and mutters â Å“are you joking Englander?â ?

Michael Asher's new reconstruction of the Rommel Raid basically asks the same question â â€œ and he argues convincingly (for the most part) that the raid was little more than a farce that cost the lives of several brave and dedicated commandos.

From its very conception in 1941, _Operation Flipper_ was undermined by bad intelligence, amateur leadership and shocking incompetence. (Rommel for his part was surprised that the British thought he would be so far in the rear.)

Asher â â€œ desert explorer, former Para, and reserve SAS trooper - is something of a gadfly who exposed Andy McNabb's bestselling account of the SAS patrol in GW1, _Bravo Two Zero_, as a gross distortion of the facts.   

He uses the same technique in this book â â€œ scoring some impressive points, but weakening the book's impact by stretching the boundaries of historical credulity.   

Based on a re-examination of the available records, contemporary accounts, and interviews with survivors, Asher argues that the raid should never have proceeded and its principal protagonists were driven mostly by personal military ambition â â€œ not sound tactical planning.   Desperate for any victory, the British high command was willing to go along - and Rommel's reputation made him a tempting target for personal elimination especially on the eve of the ill-fated Crusader offensive. 

In particular, he singles out Lt. Col. Geoffrey Keyes, who as CO of the raid, was one of the instrumental figures in its failure.   Asher suggests Keyes â â€œ the son of the famous Admiral Roger Keyes - naval war hero and Churchill chum â â€œ was promoted to lead the mission because of his family connections. (He had even failed to complete his commando training because of physical weakness).

Keyes died in the raid â â€œ and in so doing earned a posthumous Victoria Cross.   But Asher suggests that in fact Keyes may have been shot accidentally by one of his own men when he stormed into the German HQ building. (This is in addition to the known fact that another commando covering the rear of the HQ was also accidentally shot by one of the raiders.) 

The VC, suggests Asher, was awarded mostly for propaganda purposes as Keyes was the first commando commander to die in action.

This is just one of the assertions Asher builds into a narrative which relies too heavily on speculation instead of hard evidence. The reality is that no one is really sure what took place inside the HQ building on that fateful night - a point even Asher is forced to acknowledge.

However, there are other revelations that are supported by some evidence: including the claim that British Intelligence knew that Rommel wasn't in North Africa - and failed to inform the mission's leaders.

Overall, Asher's book offers a provocative perspective on a raid that even Rommel acknowledged was brilliant in conception - if not in execution.


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