1939-1945: As I Remember: The Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry at War

by Leslie Wheeler, Stephen Keoghane (Editor)

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.

Table of Contents

Foreword
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 Maps
Appendix The Structure of an Armoured Regiment
Appendix The Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry Order of Battle
Endnotes
Bibliography

224 pages, Hardcover

Published February 24, 2022

Reviews

[Andrea Di Bernardo · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book that narrates the events in an almost diary form of Leslie Wheeler, a non-commissioned officer and officer of a British cavalry unit during the Second World War. The Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry regiment was in fact employed in campaigns little known and covered by mainstream historiography and this contributes to the charm of this book edited by Stephen Keoghane. Full of juicy and interesting anecdotes, it also reveals what the war was like in the rear, with Wheeler employed in the supply echelon. They are therefore very valid and original memoirs and the book deserves to be read and known to understand the logistical effort as well as that on the front line, of a little-known regiment, in the campaigns in Syria, in El Alamein and in Italy.