Fighting with Popski’s Private Army

This is the story of Popski’s famous fighting unit, in the words of his second-in-command.

‘Captain Bob Yunnie, MC’, aka Park Yunnie, became the first recruit to the special unit founded in Cairo by Major Vladimir Peniakoff (‘Popski’). As the Eighth Army advances towards Tripoli, PPA sets out in jeeps across the desert to mount raids behind the Mareth Line. Yunnie relives the ensuing action at Gafsa and Kasserine, and vividly depicts the sorties which took the men straight across the German Line of Command.

As Tunis falls to the Allies on 7 May 1943, PPA train for raids on the Italian mainland. They are dropped by RAF gliders in central Italy, where they set about blowing up strategic targets while waiting for the Allied landings. Yunnie is given his own patrol, and in the narrative that follows, colorful characters flit in and out of the front-line action in the mountains of Southern Italy.

Yunnie’s account is an honest, extremely personal, exposé of the thrills and occasional pitfalls of life with Popski and his men.