Jack's War

Jack's War: Deceiving in the Desert, traces the extraordinary, little-known wartime story of Trooper (later Lance Corporal) Jack Lee, a British Army driver, whose service evolved from conventional armoured soldiering to the secret world of large-scale military deception in North Africa and the Mediterranean.

Beginning with conscription and the gruelling transformation from civilian to Royal Armoured Corps tank crewman at Catterick, the book follows Jack through home-service postings with the Inns of Court Regiment and 2nd Derbyshire Yeomanry as the British Army struggles to shift from horses to mechanised and armoured warfare. He then deploys to Egypt with the famous 7th Armoured Division, experiencing the harsh realities of desert campaigning and the regiment's combat debut at Alam el Halfa in 1942.

From late 1942 Jack's war takes an unexpected turn: posted to dummy tank regiments and specialist deception formations such as 102nd and 60th Royal Tank Regiment, 74th/24th Armoured Brigade (Dummy Tanks) and the notional K Detachment, SAS Brigade, he helps create and move "phantom" armoured forces designed to mislead German intelligence before key operations including the Second Battle of El Alamein. Drawing on numerous sources, the book shows how artists, engineers, drivers and ordinary soldiers combined fake tanks, dummy airfields, camouflage and bogus radio traffic to make British forces appear far larger and differently disposed than they really were - with strategic effect.

Told chronologically and grounded in unit war diaries, official records and family material, Jack's War combines narrative military history with personal reconstruction, using one driver's postings to illuminate Britain's wider shift to mechanised warfare and the rise of deception as a principle of war. It will appeal to readers interested in armoured warfare, the Desert War, deception operations, and anyone curious about how an "ordinary" soldier could stand at the centre of some of the Second World War's most sophisticated and influential deceptions.