"A rare treat: a well-written account of what it was like to serve as a junior rank in the Brigade of Guards during the Second World War." -The Guards Magazine The outbreak of World War II brought many changes to Britain's Brigade of Guards. The dress-parade units had always maintained a full combat capacity and made a relatively easy transition into a new unit, the Guards Armoured Division. The Guards landed in Normandy on 26 June 1944 and steadily fought their way across northern Europe. Robert Boscawen was a tank commander in the 1st Coldstream Guards and had four tanks shot from under him. On the fourth occasion he was badly wounded and burned, making a difficult postwar recovery. The years after the war, however, also brought both business and political success, culminating in a twenty-three-year career in Parliament. Boscawen's account of Britain's elite at war is based on his wartime diaries. "Tells the author's story in a most readable yet matter-of-fact way. It is one of the finest accounts of armoured warfare that I have ever read and I have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone who has not." -Tank Regiment Magazine