1939-1945 As I Remember

Leslie 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.

About the Author

Stephen Keoghane served for twenty-two years as the regimental medical officer to the Royal Wessex Yeomanry in the UK, USA, Germany, and Afghanistan. The editor skied and played polo for his regiment, leaving regimental duty in 2016 as a Lt-Col. Stephen trained in surgery in Oxford and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. As a consultant urological surgeon in the NHS, he publishes extensively in the international scientific literature. The author writes regularly for magazines on military subjects: this is his second book with Fonthill Media.

He is married and lives in rural Suffolk.