Once a Hussar : a memoir of battle, capture and escape in the Second World War

BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY. Once a Hussar is a vivid account of the wartime experiences of Ray Ellis, a gunner who in later life recorded in this well-written, candid and perceptive memoir the conflict he knew as a young man seventy years ago. As an impressionable teenager, fired with national pride, he was eager to join the army and fight for his country. He enlisted in the South Notts Hussars at the beginning of the Second World War and started a journey that would take him through fierce fighting in the Western Desert, the deprivation suffered in an Italian prisoner-of-war camp and a daring escape to join the partisan forces in the Appenines. His story is an honest and moving memoir of the horror of warfare, but it also reveals the surprising triumphs of the human spirit in times of great hardship. Ellis's self-deprecating humour skilfully counters the harsh realities related in a personal recollection of a war that claimed so many young lives. Read more... Abstract: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY. Once a Hussar is a vivid account of the wartime experiences of Ray Ellis, a gunner who in later life recorded in this well-written, candid and perceptive memoir the conflict he knew as a young man seventy years ago. As an impressionable teenager, fired with national pride, he was eager to join the army and fight for his country. He enlisted in the South Notts Hussars at the beginning of the Second World War and started a journey that would take him through fierce fighting in the Western Desert, the deprivation suffered in an Italian prisoner-of-war camp and a daring escape to join the partisan forces in the Appenines. His story is an honest and moving memoir of the horror of warfare, but it also reveals the surprising triumphs of the human spirit in times of great hardship. Ellis's self-deprecating humour skilfully counters the harsh realities related in a personal recollection of a war that claimed so many young lives This WWII memoir offers a vivid chronicle of combat in Egypt with the 107th Royal Horse Artillery and a daring escape from an Italian POW camp. When the Second World War broke out, Ray Ellis was a patriotic teenager eager to serve his country. Once a Hussar is Ellis’s gripping account of his wartime experiences. A gunner for the 107th RHA, South Notts Hussars, he fought in the Western Desert Campaign and distinguished himself as the last soldier to fire on advancing German troops in the devastating Battle of Knightsbridge. Captured by the Italian Royal Army, Ellis suffered harrowing deprivation as a prisoner-of-war before executing a daring escape to join the partisan forces in the Apennine Mountains. Told with self-deprecating humor and a keen eye for detail, Ellis’s story honestly depicts the horror of war, but also reveals the triumphs of the human spirit in times of great hardship. Once a Hussar is a vivid account of the wartime experiences of Ray Ellis, a gunner who in later life recorded this well-written, candid, and perceptive memoir of the conflict he knew as a young man seventy years ago. As an impressionable teenager, filled with national pride, he was eager to join the army and fight for his country. He enlisted in the South Notts Hussars at the beginning of the Second World War and started a journey that would take him through fierce fighting in the Western Desert, the deprivation suffered in an Italian prisoner-of-war camp and a daring escape to join the partisa.