The Wartime Diaries of Stanley Christopherson
Stanley Christopherson’s wartime diaries, spanning the entire war, and taking him from summer camp in Yorkshire in August 1939 all the way to Berlin, via Palestine, Tobruk, El Alamein, D-Day, and Nijmegen, are an astonishing record. In that time, Christopherson went from being a junior lieutenant to commanding his Regiment, the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry. There is no other wartime diary that can match this scope, that can demonstrate the range of command within a British regiment, or that touches so many of the key engagements of the British army during the Second World War.
I was very privileged to be able to edit these diaries, which, in their complete form, run to about 300,000 words. I’ve added notes and comments to help contextualise the diary. The Sherwood Rangers were an amazing regiment – they have more battle honours than any other single unit in the history of the British Army – and Christopherson was at the heart of those extraordinary achievements.
