Many congratulations to FeedARead.com author Peter Stokes whose book No Ordinary Life entered the Amazon top ten today.
Peter discovered his father was an SAS hero after being handed his father's second world war diary on his deathbed.
To their astonishment and pride, the journal revealed an extraordinary tale of heroism – and that Horace Stokes had actually been a founding member of the SAS.
For the first time, his children learned how their father had fought the Nazis behind enemy lines, and escaped from two PoW camps.
Because he was in the Special Air Service – formed in July 1941 – Mr Stokes was sworn to secrecy and never discussed his time on secret missions across occupied Europe.
To his three children Horace Stokes was simply their adored father, a genial greengrocer who later switched to pulling pints as a pub landlord.
He never spoke about his harrowing experiences as a soldier during the Second World War, not even with his close family.
It was only on his deathbed, after decades of silence, that Mr Stokes passed on to his children a dusty old diary to which – 20 years after the war – he had secretly committed the memories of his wartime exploits.
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