Hello everyone welcome back to warfare I'm your host James Rogers and in this episode we're talking about the desert war between 1940 and

1943 to take us through this we have Gersham Gor. He's an expert historian and journalist who writes

for the Atlantic Washington Post American Prospect and New York Times magazine.

He's the author of an amazing new book, War of Shadows.

And he brings us a whole new history of this period of the war.

He rewrites pretty much everything that we thought we knew about Rommel's rise and success

and his ultimate fall in North Africa.

As Gersham explains, there was a secret war going on in the background,

which until now has remained hidden, one which involves code breakers,

spies, and a secret struggle to drive the Nazis from the Middle East.

Enjoy. Hi Gertian, thanks for coming on to warfare. How you doing?

I'm doing great. Thank you for inviting me.

Not a problem at all. Where are you in the world? Where are you speaking to us from?

I'm speaking to you from my home in Jerusalem, Israel. Oh, fantastic. Wow, I think this is the first time we've had someone talking to us from Jerusalem. So welcome, this is a first. My pleasure to be the first. Brilliant.

Now, well, without giving too much away, I want to say that I found the topic of your research

absolutely fascinating.

It told a whole new story to a part of history that I thought I knew pretty well.

It's a part of history that my granddad was involved in. He fought in North Africa and we think we know a lot about the Desert Campaign of 1940 to

1943 but actually there's so much more to it and your work brings this out

brings in the code breakers, the spies, and the Shadow War.

So perhaps we can start there.

Take us to the beginning of your story, to the deserts of North Africa.

...