Turning The Tide

The USAAF in North Africa and Sicily

By: Thomas McKelvey Cleaver

Narrated by: Christopher Ragland

Bloomsbury presents Turning The Tide by Thomas McKelvey Cleaver, read by Christopher Ragland.

Packed with personal accounts of the action, this is a vivid narrative history of the often-overlooked USAAF campaign in North Africa and Sicily in World War II.

In 1942, the Western Allies needed to take the offensive against the Axis to relieve pressure on the Soviet Union. With planning for a cross-Channel invasion beset by logistical and operational difficulties, in May 1942 President Roosevelt ordered his military leaders to prepare to support the British in the Mediterranean. This led to the first USAAF units arriving in the Middle East in July, firstly as reinforcements for the British and later as part of the Operation Torch landings in French Morocco and Algeria in November.

In little over ten months from the summer of 1942, the USAAF in North Africa grew from nothing to a senior partner, providing aircraft and crews the other Allies were unable to match. The Axis forces that had controlled almost the entire southern shore of the Mediterranean had been swept from the African continent – thanks in no small part to the efforts of the USAAF.

Using first-hand accounts from pilots and other aircrew, Tom Cleaver describes how the USAAF units that landed in Morocco were forced to learn their own lessons in combat with veteran Luftwaffe units, and how the experience gained in the skies over North Africa and Sicily was invaluable in developing the air forces that would dominate the skies over Europe in the latter years of the war.©2024 Thomas McKelvey Cleaver (P)2024 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Critic reviews

This is a story of high drama and high heroism, told by a master of military aviation history. Once again, Tom Cleaver has given us a work that both informs and entertains, and which makes a substantial and lasting contribution to military aviation historiography.

The air war in North Africa was as vicious and as consequential as any combat in World War II, but it’s usually treated like a sideshow. Tom Cleaver gives long-deserved respect and attention to this theater – and to the aviators and crews who fought and died to win it for the allies.

Thomas Cleaver brings his well-honed investigative and storytelling gifts to bear in this remarkable book … a new benchmark in the study of aerial operations in the Mediterranean during World War II.

Cleaver masterfully weaves personal stories of pilots into the larger fabric of the war, creating a narrative that puts the reader into the cockpit as well as the history books.

Tom Cleaver neatly weaves a tight web of the varied players in the Mediterranean air war of 1941–43.

This is an 'all guns blazing' history of the USAAF campaign in North Africa and Sicily during World War Two.

Interesting Collection Of After-Action Reports

Overall, I found this book quite enjoyable, with several significant caveats. Functionally, this is a collection of after-action reports by USAAF (and, briefly, USN) pilots about their early-war experiences in a theater which has received relatively little coverage. The reports are well-selection, and truly give a feel for the challenges faced by pilots (and occasionally, ground crews) in the theater. They are worth reading (or hearing, in this case), even taking into account my comments below.

That said, there are several issues. First, the narrator struggles with the pronunciation of a number of names (as other reviewers have noted). This is relatively minor, but it does grate a bit after a while.

Another minor issue (and kind a pet-peeve of mine) is that the various after-action reports simply repeat the shoot down claims of the pilots, only rarely comparing them to actual losses inflicted. This is applicable to both sides covered here (there is a modest section covering the German and Italian pilots opposing the USAAF). Given the common discrepancies between claims and actual losses inflicted during the war, this seems a bit of oversight.

Finally, and most importantly, the book doesn't really provide a strategic structure to frame the pilots' narratives. Are the allies suffering losses so high that the units become combat effective? What was the flow of replacement pilots and aircraft like? How did the balance of power change of the course to the time period covered? What were the actual losses suffered by each side during various phases of the conflict? While I realize that this isn't necessarily the focus of the work, it would go a long way towards linking the various narratives into a broader story of how the USAAF (and its allies) turned the tide in the air war in the theater.

After-Action Report Reading

This book provides a general idea of the timelines of the air war in North Africa but provides no depth into life in a squadron or how men lived and felt. It was basically a compilation of after-action reports.

Great telling of little told stories

Great book held back only by the narrator who has a tendency to speak in an odd cadence. Aside from that the book is great, telling stories that aren’t often told such as US Navy Hellcats fighting the Vichy French Air Force in Africa and the combat missions for the A-36 Mustang, a dive bombing version of the P-51. Overall the excellent content more than makes up for the lack luster narration.

P-38 lightning

Such a fascinating and under appreciated story, the Mediterranean operations. Detailed the North African and Sicilian campaigns. Next stop mainland Italy!

The terrible narrator

Dense with detail. I can usually absorb that but this reader is atrociously bad. Flat narration & awful distracting pronunciation errors