Commando Despatch Rider

Book excerpt: “A year of a man and his motorcycle during WW2 . . . The guy was catapulted from teenager to soldier in a few short bounds.” —War History Online In 1944, Ray Mitchell landed in Normandy with his unit 41 Royal Marine Commando. His role in bringing the Third Reich to its knees was that of despatch rider. Often operating alone in totally unfamiliar and hostile terrain, he and his motorbike delivered vital messages to forward units. This is a fighting soldier’s account of war—warts and all—and describes in vivid terms his and his fellow commandos’ experiences and emotions. Over the next ten months the commandos were in the thick of the action in France, the Low Countries and Germany itself. Of particular note was the amphibious landing on the Walcheren Peninsula where the beleaguered German garrison fought fiercely to deny the Allies the vital port of Antwerp. Raymond Mitchell’s vivid memoirs of life and war on the road will be of interest to both military and motorcycling enthusiasts. “A delightful account of life in battle and between battles. It is by turns gripping, exciting, colourful, authentic and human.” —Firetrench “It is a richly detailed account and would be worthy of mention if it were just that of an ordinary infantryman’s experience, but it is all the more valuable as the lot of the despatch rider has never received much attention.” —The Pegasus Archive