Books: Blood & Sand

BRAZEN CHARIOTS (223 pp.)—Robert Crisp—Norton ($3.95).

The air force, the infantry, the surface warships, and submariners, the merchant marine—all have had their share of glory in the histories and novels of World War II. A noticeable gap is the one left by the men who fought in tanks. They have been mentioned, but seldom in a starring role. Yet their part was often crucial, and their death was often the most fearful—with the victims trapped in a flaming pyre that offered no escape. In Brazen Chariots, a South African major of the British Army, who fought in Greece and later in North...