Peter Doyle is a scientist and military historian specialising in the role of terrain in warfare. In addition to numerous scientific books and papers, he has written: The British Soldier of the First World War (Shire 2008),Tommy's War 1914-1918 (Crowood 2008), The Home Front: 1939-45 (Crowood, 2007, with Paul Evans); Beneath Flanders Fields: The Underground War 1914-18 (Spellmount, 2004, with Peter Barton and Johan Vandewalle) and Grasping Gallipoli (Spellmount, 2005, with Peter Chasseaud). He is co-secretary of the All Party Parliamentary War Graves and Battlefield Heritage Group, and is an elected member of the British Commission for Military History. He lives in London.

This is the story of the British soldier in the Second World War; a story of endurance through the long years of conflict, in theatres as diverse as Europe, the Western Desert, the Arctic and the Far East. It is the real story of the British Tommy, truthful and unglorified. Beginning on the road to Dunkirk, Peter Doyle traces the life of the British Soldier from 1939 through the development of Fortress Britain and the rearming of troops to open the 'Second Front' in Europe. With reference to military equipment, literature, art and ephemera, he conjures an image of what it was like to serve in the British Army during this gruelling war. He tells how troops would fight in the desert, on the long road that led to victory in Alamein, and of the battles against the Japanese in the Far East.