Major-General Rea Leakey was one of the Royal Tank Regiment's greatest heroes of World War II. His autobiography is based on the diary which he kept at the time, something which was strictly forbidden. It provides us with an eyewitness account of a man who was actually there at the "sharp end" and covers the whole period of his army service, from joining his first regiment up until the end of World War II. His story is truly remarkable, from the time he spent as a young tank squadron commander fighting Afrika Korps in the desert, and later as a Churchill tank batallion commander in Normandy and the fight through to the Rhine.