Bewarne’s Novel - First Draft

Warned Against Optimism: September 1942

(Last update May 26, 2008)

I have found each of these things particularly useful in gaining background information for this novel.

The North Africa Campaign

• War Without Hate: The Desert Campaign of 1940-43 by John Bierman and Colin Smith
• The Desert Generals by Correlli Barnett
• The Eighth Army: The Triumphant Desert Army That Held the Axis at Bay from North Africa to the Alps, 1939-1945 by Robin Neillands
• The Long Range Desert Group
• War in the Desert: The Eighth Army at El AlameinbyJames Sidney Lucas

DVDs of World War II

• The World at War - 26 hours on World War II, done in Britain in 1974
• The War- A Film By Ken Burns and Lynn Novick (The American Side of World War II)

Books of World War II

• The War: An Intimate History, 1941-1945 - The American Side of World War II by Ken Burns and Geoffrey Ward
• Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions That Changed the World, 1940-1941 by Ian Kershaw
• The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy by Adam Tooze
• The Great Escape by Paul Brickhill

S.I.G. - Special_Interrogation_Group

• Tobruk Commando: The Raid to Destroy Rommel’s Base by Gordon Landsborough
• Massacre at Tobruk by Peter Smith (paperback out May of 2008)
• Wikipedia entry on SIG

Operation Agreement (September 13 & 14. 1942) An attempt to retake Tobruk to coordinate with several other attacks to destroy airfield and harbour installations and large oil stores and to recapture Jalo oasis. “The main attack on Tobruk suffered from poor planning and coordination.” One partwith amphibious landings resulted in “Losses were about 300 Royal Marines, 166 Army, 280 Royal Navy, one cruiser (HMS Coventry), two destroyers (HMS Sikh and Zulu), two Motor Launches, four MTBs and several small craft.” This mission is not mentioned any main World War II lists of actions.

Jews

• The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda during World War II and the Holocaust by Jeffrey Herf
• Frontline: The Longest Hatred (DVD)
• Figuring the day and reading for a Bar Mitzvah
  

Gypsies

• The Gypsies by Jan Yoors
• The Nazi’s Persecution of the Gypsies by Guenter Lewy
• Gypsies: Their Life, Lore, and Legend by Konrad Bercovici originally from 1928 (I am not convinced he is very knowledgeable) — lib book
• The Gypsies by Anne Wallace Sharp, from the series Indigenous Peoples of the World, listed as a Juvenile — lib book. This book recommends:
  • Romania from Geography Dept., 1993
  • Gypsies by Harold Greenfeld, 1977
  • The Holocaust by Judy L Hasday, 2002
  • Witnesses to War by Michael Leapman 1998
  • A History of the Gypsies of Eastern Eruope and Russia by David M. Crowe 1994
  • Gypsies, Wanderers of the World by Bart McDowell 1970
  • www.romnews.com
  • www.gypsyloresociety.org
  • www.patrin.com
  • www.romani.org
  • www.romaniworld.com

Women in the Military

• Women Warriors: A History by David E. Jones

World War I

• The First World War (DVD set of the British series,based upon the book by Hugh Strachan)

General

• God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World (Hardcover) by Walter Russel Mead
• Predictably Irrational

Things I plan to read for this

• Guesstimation: Solving the World’s Problems on the Back of a Cocktail Napkin
• Impossible?: Surprising Solutions to Counterintuitive Conundrums

Things I plan to own (second hand is just as good as new):

• Nazi Germany and the Jews volumn 1 The Years of Persecution, 1933-1939 by Saul Friedlander (and maybe volume 2, after I have volume 1)
• Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior by S Ori Brafman, Rom Brafman
• The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes — and Why by Amanda Ripley
• Massacre at Tobruk: The British Assault on Rommel, 1942 by Peter C. Smith
• The War Against Rommel’s Supply Lines, by Alan J. Levine
• Infantry Mortars of World War II by John Norris
• Write Great Fiction - Dialogue by Gloria Kempton