Operation Agreement: Jewish Commandos and the Raid on Tobruk
In this thoroughly researched work, Sadler tells the heroic and little-known World War II story of Operation Agreement, an Allied offensive in North Africa against German forces under Rommel. What made this offensive so unusual was that much of it was undertaken by the Special Interrogation Group (SIG), a commando unit largely made up German Jews; these brave men knew they would be facing death or a concentration camp if captured. The SIG’s mission was to make an overland assault of Rommel’s entrenched forces at the port of Tobruk, which meant covering 1,700 miles of desert simply to reach their target. They disguised themselves as prisoners of war being “escorted” by German soldiers who were actually their comrades in stolen German uniforms.
The level of detail in this book is impressive; there is no doubt that the author knows every armament statistic, every bit of geography, and the name of every combatant in the story of the raid on Tobruk. But what seems to be missing is the human touch. The story is told in a clinical, detached manner, which would serve a professor lecturing at a war college very well, but which detracts from the interests of the average reader.
