The Battle of The Peaks and Long Stop Hill (book review)

 The Battle of The Peaks and Long Stop Hill

By Ian Mitchell

Helion & Company

ISBN 978-1-911628-93-4

Hardback, 352 pages

From the blurb; Ian Mitchell has wanted to write about the actions of the British 78^th Infantry Division during the hard fought actions in Tunisia for quite some time.

The author has spent a long time digging through Regimental records and the national archives in order to create a more complete picture of part of World War II which has been long neglected.

The book is very detailed and covers all levels of the divisional planing of the various actions right down to battalion, company, platoon and patrol actions. He also covers the supporting services: Royal Engineers, artillery, reconnaissance, ordnance and supply and armour; all in fair detail.

The author takes a lot of time describing various patrol actions and quotes numerous individual citations for bravery among the various units taking part. There are some excellent digital maps in full colour and a fair number of photos.

The text is written in a narrative style, quoting freely from personal accounts, both published and unpublished; Regimental histories and the National Archives. There is a lot of detail here for the wargamer to re-create tabletop actions based on the tough fighting for the hills between the experienced British infantry and well dug-in and prepared German defenders.

I have to say I did find the book a bit dry at times and the authors obviously admiration for 78^th Division and attached units and his wish to highlight their bravery, long overlooked or at the most just worth a paragraph or so in a more general history. The constant citations for individual bravery and personal remembrances, whilst important to the narrative, didn`t help move the story along. But my main frustration was the author`s lack coverage from the German side of the various actions described. The author himself at one point explains that for him to have expanded his research to the German point of view would have taken too much time and added costs! Rather disappointing from my viewpoint and made the book far less that it could have been. Oh and one final point I do wish authors would double check nomenclature from militarys they are not expert in – on page 46 the author talks about a French unit – 4RTA calling them 4^th Regiment Tabor Algerian. This should of course read 4^th Regiment Tirailleur Algerian, a bit pedantic I accept, but a silly error.