Leakey's Luck

Edited by George Forty 

Major General Rea Leakey was one of the Royal Tank regiments greatest heroes of the Second World War. As a young tank commander, he fought Rommel's Afrika Korps in the Western Desert of Egypt, before becoming trapped for six months in the siege of Tobruk and temporarily joining the Australian infantry as an honorary Lance Corporal.

He later returned to the European theatre in 1944 and served as a Churchill tank commander in Normandy, the Rhine and Germany. Many of his exploits were hair-raising, some even too fantastic to believe. Incredibly, Leakey's luck held out throughout the war, and he remained in the British army until retirement in 1968.