As you know, I've been reading Honor Denied, written by an SS radio operator (please contact me if you are interested in buying this book). It has been most interesting reading a book by a radio operator because he has shared about the communications he has sent on behalf of the officers he has served, in particular, Field Marshal Edwin Rommel, the Desert Fox.In the earlier chapters of the book, he served as Rommel's radio operator during the Battle of France. It has been interesting to read about the tactics Rommel employed to defeat the Allies. In Belgium, he got his 7th Panzer Division and Das Reich Regiment to weave in and out across the Belgian-French border in a seemingly lost and unfocused fashion. But the author reveals that Rommel did this to confuse the Allies as to his intentions and caused them to unconcentrate their forces and disperse them across Belgium as they tried to cover various locations which could be Rommel's target. As a result, Rommel was able to then turn back around and push his forces through gaps opened up in the Allied lines due to this "unconcentration" and to refocus his forces on the now weaker Allied concentrations and defeat them.
The author also wrote about Rommel calculating where the Allies would concentrate their forces and how Rommel deliberately maneuvered to avoid these concentrations to instead, find the Allied logistical rear areas and attacked those locations instead. The author contrasted this strategy with those of von Manstein who chose to attack Allied concentrations at Leige and who got tied down in heavy fighting there while Rommel dashed through Belgium by avoiding Allied troop concentrations.
More on this book as I continue reading! Panzers Forward!
Colin
Combat Films and Books
Combat-Blog
