Tony Hough's war started with ski training in the Alps in early 1940 preparing for winter warfare in Finland. Nothing came of that. Later that year, now an officer with 9th Battalion The Rifle Brigade, he sailed for North Africa. In March 1941, his under-gunned Battalion suffered a catastrophic baptism of fire in Libya from 15,000 troops and 500 tanks of Rommel's Afrika Korps.
For the next 18 months Hough and his Battalion experienced brutal...