This volume picks up the story as the 8th Army was forced back to the Gazala area, roughly mid-way between the Cyrenaican/Tripolitanian border of Libya and the frontier with Egypt. It covers the army's disastrous defeatin June 1942, and the loss of Tobruk. The costly efforts of the Allied air forces to protect the retreating British and Commonwealth troops is examined in depth. This period was ameliorated somewhat by the arrival of the first Spitfires. Rommel’s Afrika Korps was defeated at Alam el Halfa at the start of September, and then at El Alamein in October. Joined by the first units of the United States Army Air Force, the Allies began to achieve a growing ascendency over those of the Axis.