Brazen Chariots - Robert 'Bob' Crisp

I've had it in my collection for many years. Whenever I reread it I always appreciate the personal viewpoint that the author gives to an often over-looked campaign.

 

I liked it quite a lot. Here's my review -

[SIZE=medium]Brazen Chariots by Robert Crisp[/SIZE]​

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Crisp, a South African, served with 3rd Battalion RTR in Greece, the desert and briefly in Normandy(He writes of his Greek experiences in ‘The Gods were Neutral’ but doesn’t appear to have written at all of his time in Normandy). This book covers just four weeks of his experiences in the Crusader battles in late 1941. It must be said though, that these four weeks – for those who didn’t become casualties, were extremely intense and Crisp is a good enough writer to convey it all in a very powerful fashion.

The most astonishing thing is the incredible tempo of the operations. Crisp’s brigade is shuttled all over the place and his regiment and often, just his understrength squadron, seem to be continually operating in isolation against well concentrated Axis forces. Also, long, hot drives, and nights spent prepping the tanks for the next day’s actions, meant that the men were in a constant state of exhaustion.

The Crusader battles were meant to break Rommel’s siege of Tobruk and ultimately they achieved this but there were many twists in the proceedings which led to swirling advances across the desert, frequently interrupted by bitter combat. Crisp was a troop commander of Honey (Stuart) tanks, a weapon that was heavily outgunned by the German panzers. Crisp goes into great detail about the efforts he went to, to compensate for the imbalances. Dash was often his only option and his account is full of very dramatic armour battles. The deadliness of which he spells out, particularly so during his own traumatic journey as a casualty at the conclusion of his account.

There are about a dozen memoirs by British tank men and though it is hard to compare desert accounts with those of Normandy and beyond, this is certainly the most action packed of all of them. Crisp was a post-war journalist and his writing is vivid and detailed. He conveys very well the fear and gore of unrelenting armoured warfare (as well as the absolute ignorance the actual fighting men were left in of what was happening). There are deadly mistakes and amazing incompetence too. The author comes across as very ‘British’ in terms of his understated, almost humble tone. This is particularly intriguing when considered with the way he actually lived his life. Besides being a test cricketer and some amazing developments in his military career, he was a rake who would make rock-stars blush! A very interesting article on the man is here -

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2013/mar/05/the-spin-bob-crisp-amazing-life

This aside, his account of desert warfare is compelling. 4.75 stars

 

i too, got this book a long time ago, i agree it is a quite limited time frame. but i still find that i pull it off the bookshelf every so often. i strongly recomend it.