Once a Hussar

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.