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Ray Ellis

Once A Hussar Paperback – 5 Jan. 2009

by Ray Ellis (Author)

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Once a Hussar is a true account of the wartime experiences of Ray Ellis. As an impressionable teenager, fired with national pride, he was eager to join the army and fight for his country. He enlisted in the South Notts Hussars at the beginning of World War II and began a journey which would take him through fierce fighting in the Western Desert, an Italian prisoner of war camp and a daring escape to join the partisan forces in the Apennines. His story is an honest and moving memoir of the unimaginable horrors of warfare but also reveals the surprising triumphs of the human spirit in times of great hardship. Ellis's self-deprecating humour skilfully counters the harsh realities related in a personal recollection of a war that claimed so many young lives.

Print length

264 pages
Language

English
Publisher

New Generation Publishing
Publication date

5 Jan. 2009
Dimensions

15.6 x 1.41 x 23.4 cm
ISBN-10

0755211006
ISBN-13

978-0755211005
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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ New Generation Publishing (5 Jan. 2009)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 264 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0755211006
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0755211005
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 15.6 x 1.41 x 23.4 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 1,874,474 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 5,880 in World War II Biographies & Memoirs
- 7,349 in World War II Biographies (Books)
- 38,973 in Warfare & Defence

Customer reviews:
14 ratings

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Mr. R. Syson

once a hussar

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 January 2011

Verified Purchase

A real well written book which captures life in the build up to the war. It captures the values of a generation who put duty and love of country before personal gratification. The book captures the spirit of pre war territorials as well as the relationship between Ray and his brother. The book captures the change in these young soldiers as they moved from peace time soldiering to active service. As they fight their way to Knightsbridge the pre war territorials are gradually reduced in number and joined by younger soldiers. This was a generation that gave their today for our tomorrow and this book shows them at their finest. The South Notts Hussars could stand up to the German Army but Brown and Blair have reduced their numbers and replaced their unique cap badge. The contrast between Ray Ellis 's generation and today's gutless politicans is so great it is difficult to believe that we are the same people .

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Dr Robert Lyman

First class account of an extraordinary war

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 August 2009

Verified Purchase

This is a superb book. Ray Ellis has provided us with an account of his life when, as a young lad in Nottingham in 1938 he joined the local TA Regiment - the South Notts Hussars - through to 1944 when he was repatriated to the UK from Italy where he had been first a POW and then an escapee living among friendly Italian peasants in the mountains. It is a wonderfully heart warming story, told with frankness and honesty. His account of the terrible Knightsbridge battle outside Tobruk in June 1942 is one of the most dramatic accounts of battle I have ever read, and his escapades (literally) after escaping from an Italian POW camp in 1943 are the stuff of fiction. The book bursts with the humanity, intelligence and compassion of the author, as well as his good sense. I could not put the book down, and eagerly await the next promised installment.

4 people found this helpful

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L Sutton

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 10 April 2016

Verified Purchase

Very good read

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Written with the understanding which comes with time.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 September 2019

A book first published in 2009 recounting the WW2 exploits of a British soldier might beg the question as to why he waited so long. Having studied his story - and frequently marvelled at the events which befell him, I came to understand how that passage of time had allowed former soldier and author Ray Ellis to place a fair and reasonable appreciation on the events in question. In short, this memoir is written with a fuller understanding of what actually happened at the time than ‘might’ have otherwise been the case. Had the work been written immediately after the war, we may have had a work tainted by the sadness and bitterness of such recent tragic events. Instead, we have a balanced and carefully thought-out account of one man’s truly remarkable adventure thnrough that war.

Like so many of the youth of the day, Ray Ellis longed for the excitement of uniform and war. Fired with national pride he joined the South Notts Hussars. Transferred to the Royal Horse Artillery, he became a gunner and was soon in Palestine. From there it was a relatively short hop to the rigours of North Africa where his first taste of battle came at Mersa Matruh. Following his deployments to Sidi Barani, Gennia and Suez he became part of the famous defence of Tobruk - where he describes life during the siege with a simple honesty which allows the reader to understand the the very real hardships. This is followed by the break-out from Tobruk, the Nile Delta and the Battle of Knightsbridge - so far removed from the London Borough from which it took its name, and where his was the last gun still firing as they were overwhelmed with very few surviving to be taken prisoner.

In many ways, however, this man’s remarkable tale could have started right here as wee learn of his days as a POW, his escape, life ‘on the run’ and his eventual joining the partisans in the Apennine mountains. Eventually, of course, we learn of his repatriation.

I shall not spoil the enjoyment of the read (and it is a most satisfying read!), by revealing all - except to say that Ray Ellis has that rare ability to provide the most authentic and graphic accounts of the many different elements to this story - his being a civilian, a soldier, a fighter, under siege, a POW, an escapee, a fellow partisan and a homer-comer. It is a gripping tale, well told without any hint of bitterness towards that former enemy.

Somehow he is able to summarise all his own feelings in the book’s Dedication which simply reads; “To those of my Comrades who grow not old.”

God bless them all!

NM
British army major (retired)

One person found this helpful

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Julian Le Vay

A superb & deeply moving evocation of a young man's experience of war

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 June 2011

Ray Ellis''s account of his war in North Africa is a remarkable achievement. His total recall of the sights, sounds and smells of war, of the long tedium and discomfort of seemingly random movements here and there punctuated by the sudden terror and confusion of battle, of the consolation of comradeship and the quickly supressed grief of sudden loss, is exraordinarily acute after some 50 years.

Just as remarkable is the extended passage after his escape from PoW camp in Italy into the remote, almost mediaeval world of a farm in the high Apennines, where a deperately poor family takes him in almost without a word and he becomes one of them, working the fields alongside them for almost a year. For a lad from 1930s Nottinghamshire, where even a trip to London was a rare adventure, how utterly amazing this must have been!

His account is the more compelling for being straightfroward and untainted by too much subsequent reflection, yet this is far from being artless. There is a deep humanity in his understanding of how much soldiers of all sides have in common, and he takes people as he finds them - one of the most cruel and repellent people meets is an Italian officer, and one the most movingly kind, an Itailan peasant.

I was privileged to meet Ray together with a German veteran of the same campaign and shall ever remember their gentle, sad and wise conversation.

Several times in the book Ray doubts if he has done justice to his story and to his lost comrades. He needn't have. This is a fine testament, and utterly gripping - read in one go!

One person found this helpful

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Once A Hussar Paperback – 5 Jan. 2009

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Ray Ellis

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