Secrets of the Desert War

First, geography. Mussolini in 1940 more or less owned Libya, which was right next door to Egypt, which was more or less owned by the British. Mussolini was covetous. Neither colony had any natural resources worth mentioning but Egypt had the Suez Canal, a vital 100-mile waterway linking the Mediterranean with the Red Sea and beyond that the Indian Ocean. Whoever owned Egypt owned the Suez Canal and could block the ships of any other country from using it. That meant sailing around the southern tip of the African continent.

Franco's Spain had sat out the war, though remaining friendly with Germany. Mussolini, seeing the destruction wrought on the Allies on the European continent -- Poland, France, and the rest -- decided to join Hitler in conquest. Mussolini would take the Mediterranean and turn it back into mare nostrum.

So he attacked the Brits in Egypt. The Brits were outnumbered and desperately in need of intelligence, so General Wavell commandeered a fleet of some one hundred Chevrolet trucks, staffed them with experienced soldiers and mechanics, and formed a special intelligence force. The Brits also used deception, at which they were experts, including the use of phony weapons platforms like tanks, made of rubber and blown up by balloons, later used by FUSAG to confuse the Germans about the D-Day landings. The Italians under Graziani halted, believing they faced a large enemy force. In time, they did, with the arrival of 130,000 troops from New Zealand, Rhodesia, and the rest of the colonies.

The tables turned with the arrival of Rommel and the Africa Corps. A stage magician was brought in from England to disguise facilities and mislead the Germans, and evidently some of his tactics worked. I'd never heard of them. For instance he surrounded important points with high-intensity searchlights, each shooting out seven beams. When enemy bombers approached, the extensive array of beams began to spin in eccentric circles, blinding and disorienting the Luftwaffe pilots.

In addition a small force of guerrillas were formed for insertion behind enemy lines, specially trained airborne troops. They were quite effective although their mission was filled with danger. They were christened the SAS.

What follows is a spicy blend of espionage, counter-espionage, phony trucks, miniature railways, codes broken and unbroken, and a liaison with a belly dance in Cairo's Kit Kat Klub.

The program uses newsreel footage, reenactments, and (judiciously) computer-generated images. It's not bad at all.