Top-Hats in Tobruk (1983) By Kenneth Rankin
 
This book is based on the diary of Kenneth Rankin. a junior officer who served in a Territorial antiaircraft artillery unit which was shipped to Egypt to serve in the Western Desert. The "Top-Hats" were sent in the wake of the 1940 British advance in Libya but found themselves under siege in Tobruk when an Axis counterattack isolated imperial troops there. Rankin, whose entries discuss everything from the proper method of AAA engagement (gun-laying as opposed to barrage fire) to his observations of the morale and capabilities of imperial troops to the debris left behind by the Italians.
 
The story of a troop of Anti-Aircraft Gunners who took part in the early North African Campaigns. Taken from the diary of one of its officers (the author) it provides an intimate almost hour-by-hour account of the Siege of Tobruk, written from one of the gun sites. Covers the period from August 1940 when they travelled to Egypt to September 1941 when, after the campaign in the Desert, they were picked up in Tobruk by a British destroyer and returned to Alexandria.
 
Hard Cover with Dust Jacket
330 pages
In Good Condition