Lions at Dawn

Author’s Note:

Dear Readers,

‘Tis now the very witching time of night…’ A most appropriate quote for the way this volume will begin. We finally came to New Year’s Eve, 1942, and entered the critical middle year of the war in the last volume. 1943 was a year where both sides launched bold new offensives, punching and counterpunching in the decisive battles that would eventually decide the course of the war.

We’ll begin to see some of these new operations here, many as desperate as they are daring, as both sides attempt to ride the storm tide of war to some favorable end. And true to the general premise of this entire series, we will also see new challengers emerge to threaten the aspirations of all our principal players. Yet now I begin with another twist in the knotted rope of this story that will dramatically complicate the plans being laid by Fedorov and Karpov. It will see this book conclude with another tense six chapter naval duel in the Pacific involving the full range of all the most deadly modern weapons of war. Yet before that happens, there is much more story to relate as the war flares up in the West.

The principle action of this volume will rest in North Africa, as the combined Allied forces in Algeria attempt to push the Germans back into Tunisia, while our Desert Fox, Erwin Rommel, again locks horns with General Richard O’Connor in Tripolitania. Yet Adolf Hitler also gets into the act here, his mercurial mind reaching for new opportunities in the Middle East when the Russian Front is frozen solid in the coldest winter seen in over 200 years. This will lead the Führer to revisit old plans and operations, and dramatic make changes at OKW needed to carry them out.

Just for spice, we will also see two other smaller operations here. One takes place in the Med, in the waters off Tunis and Bizerte, and another will take us to the skies above the Black Sea. There, the Führer’s new airships are launched a most surprising mission, as Germany unveils the first of its deadly “Wonder Weapons” of WWII.