Description
Book SynopsisLeslie Wheeler was born in Devizes, Wiltshire in 1909, and in 1927 he enlisted in his local Territorial Army regiment, the Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry. Leslie served throughout the Second World War in the Middle East, North Africa, and Italy as a senior non-commissioned officer and was then commissioned as quartermaster into the regiment that he clearly loved. His honest and revealing memoirs depict the final years of horsed cavalry in the British Army, the wartime transition to mobile but poorly equipped desert columns, and finally the transition to a tank regiment. The often-overlooked 1941 campaigns in Syria, Iraq, and Persia as well as El Alamein and the fight north through Italy are described by the author in a typically understated fashion. What makes this tale unique is the often amusing and sometimes cynical perspective of a senior and experienced soldier working tirelessly in the quartermaster’s department to keep his regiment supplied in peace and war.
Table of ContentsForeword; Editor’s Preface; Author’s Preface; 1: Preparing for War; 2: Towards Port Q; 3: Searchlights and Mechanisation; 4: Life in the Iraq Desert; 5: The Vichy French Attack; 6: I Meet the Deputy Assistant Quarter Master General (DAQMG); 7: The Invasion of Persia; 8: Lost in the Sand; 9: Egypt and Armour; 10: A Move to Stop Rommel; 11: El Alamein; 12: Sidi Bishr Rest Camp; 13: My Commission Arrives and Training Continues; 14: The Regiment Arrives in Italy; 15: The Colonel Runs Short of Vino; 16: News of Our Return to England; Postscript; Epilogue; Appendix I: Maps; Appendix II: The Structure of an Armoured Regiment; Appendix III: The Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry Order of Battle; Endnotes; Bibliography.
