Written by a preeminent historian of the British Army, this is the definitive history of the British Army in the Second World War: its campaigns and battles, defeats and victories, across all theatres of operations from the outbreak of war with Germany in 1939 to the final defeat of Japan in 1945.

Here the listener will find grand strategy at the highest level, but also the reality of command in the field and the experience of combat for the infantry, gunners and the tankers as the British Army fought its way through the war. But above all this is a full, authoritative and vividly written account of the British Army in the Second World War as it came to grips with, and in the end triumphed over, its enemies in the field.

Born the son of Brigadier The Honourable William Fraser (1890-1964) DSO MC, who had been the military attache in Paris when the Second World War began, David Fraser was educated at Eton College and Christ Church College, Oxford. He left school to enlist at earliest opportunity after the Second World War begun, and joined his father's regiment, the Grenadier Guards, in 1940, serving for much of the War with the Guards Armoured Division, later in northwest Europe, ending the war in the rank of major. He was appointed general officer commanding 4th division in 1969, assistant chief of defence staff (policy) in 1971, and vice chief of the imperial general staff in 1973. He went on to be British military representative to NATO in 1975, and commandant of the royal college of defence studies in 1977 before retiring in 1980.