Top-Hats in Tobruk (Four Stars)

This book is based on the diary of Kenneth Rankin. a junior officer who served in a Territorial antiaircraft artillery unit which was shipped to Egypt to serve in the Western Desert. The "Top-Hats" were sent in the wake of the 1940 British advance in Libya but found themselves under siege in Tobruk when an Axis counterattack isolated imperial troops there. Rankin, whose entries discuss everything from the proper method of AAA engagement (gun-laying as opposed to barrage fire) to his observations of the morale and capabilities of imperial troops to the debris left behind by the Italians.

The book is slow at some parts, and there are some passages which seem irrelevant but it's understandable since it was meant as a day-to-day log. There are a few typos that could have been caught and, strangely, the map included in the book shows the Sinai as belonging to Saudi Arabia. There is a glossary in the front of the book, which is absolutely vital unless you are familiar with Royal Artillery gunnery practices.
The imperial troops trapped in Tobruk were unique in modern warfare in that their fortress (a salient, really) was unable to provide fighter cover for its own defense, despite having an airfield. Attacks by the Luftwaffe reduced and eventually eliminated Tobruk's own fighter force and the fortress was too far for the RAF in Egypt to provide top cover. The air defense would almost entirely be provided by antiaircraft artillery, and the Top Hat gunners began by providing a barrage over the vital harbor. When Ju87 dive bombers began attacks and clearly intended to eliminate the AAA sites in order to systematically reduce the fortress then the gunners improvised a mutually-supporting Vital Point protection scheme, using the firepower from other sites to protect the gun site under attack.

The Royal Artillery had both short-range and long-range early warning radars, yet the defenses seem to be taken by surprise all the time. Gun-laying radar should also been available, but this is not discussed by the author at all.

The British men who fought in the Western Desert fought under incredible conditions and those trapped by Rommel in the Tobruk Fortress even more so. This book puts you right in the center of the action, in an antiaircraft unit defending Tobruk against the worst that the Luftwaffe could pound it with.