[ Major General Douglas Wimberley. ] Author's copy, with bookplate and autograph additions, of typed volume: '"Scottish Soldier". An Autobiography by Douglas Wimberley. (A private account for my wife and family) Volume II Part IV - World War II'.

[3] + 280pp., 8vo, on the rectos only of the leaves. Bookplate of Douglas Neil Wimberley on flyleaf. Around half a dozen additional duplicated maps inserted. With copious autograph additions on upwards of 70pp. of the blank reverses of the leaves, several taking up the whole page, and a number initialled 'DW'. Internally in good condition, on aged and worn paper, in worn green fake-cloth binding, with 'SCOTTISH SOLDIER | VOLUME II | BY | DOUGLAS WIMBERLEY' in faded gilt on cover. Front endpaper with autograph note reproducing the text of a letter to Wimberley from Montgomery of Alamein, commending the book (a typed version of the same text is also present on a slip of paper, signed by Wimberley). Signed Autograph Note by Wimberley on both sides of a rear flyleaf, headed '51st HD Battles in World War II', and dated 'D Wimberley | 1979'. Autograph List on rear endpaper of 'officers who served with me, in HD, in N. Africa & Sicily in 1942 & 1943, [...] later in their careers to reach General Officers rank'. In an introduction, signed by Wimberley and dated 1974, he states that he set himself to write the book as he had been requested during the 1950s to assist a number of historians of 'the Middle East campaigns', and that he found that by the end of that decade 'full histories of nearly all the Infantry battalions that comprised the Highland Division had been published, in addition to our Divisional History'. The volume contains 19 chapters, numbered 24 to 42, with six appendices and three indexes. Chapter titles include: 'Training with the 51st', 'Alamein', 'Advance to Tripoli', 'Medinine & Hareth Battle', 'Akarit', 'End of North Africa', 'Sicily, The Landings', 'Engagements of Francofonte and Vizzini', 'Engagements of Cerbini and Sferro', 'Battle of Adrano and the Zferro Hills'. Appendices include '51st Highland Division Order of Battle North Africa 1942/43' and 'Random thoughts on Generalship in the World Wars'. Wimberley ends the introduction by stating that 'A separate copy of this volume (as well as certain extracts from Volume I) is now in the possession of the Archives Centre of Churchill College, Cambridge, and they have agreed that it is not to be released for general reading until 1985.' An autograph note to the introduction states that copies of the volume are also in the National Library of Scotland and Inverness Public Library. The volume is otherwise scarce: no copies show up on either OCLC WorldCat or on COPAC.