Start Digging, You Bastards!: Australian and New Zealand Forces' Desperate Battle with Rommel and the Axis at El Alamein (Unabridged)

The gripping story of the important role played by Australians and New Zealanders in defeating the Axis powers in North Africa during World War II.

July, 1942. The North African campaign rages. The Allies have been forced to retreat from Gazala, and are being pursued through the sandy wastes by 'The Desert Fox' – Field Marshal Rommel and his Panzerarmee. The target of the enemy is Cairo – if taken, the Axis powers will control the Suez Canal and be within striking distance of the oil fields of the Middle East, tipping the war in Hitler's favour.

In their way is the Eighth Army, spearheaded by the battle-hardened troops of the Ninth Australian Division and the Second New Zealand Division. General Montgomery depends on these soldiers to break the resistance of the formidable Afrika Korps and turn the tide of the war.

Bestselling author Tom Gilling recounts in vivid detail the brutal fighting, deadly artillery barrages and momentous tank battles that characterised the desert war, culminating in two immense clashes around an isolated Egyptian railway halt at El Alamein. This fateful desert conflict tested the courage and endurance of every soldier.