John Richard Easonsmith

It is the 15th of November, 1943, on the Greek island of Leros, and Lieutenant Colonel Jake Easonsmith has commanded the long-range desert group for barely a month.

Three days into a German invasion, the island has been cut in two.

German paratroopers hold the high ground at its centre.

He is dead within minutes.

Word of his death moves through the unit fast, even amid the chaos of a battle already being lost.

Bill Kennedy Shaw, who had helped build this unit from nothing back in the summer of 1940, will later write of Easonsmith that he was the finest man we ever had in the LRDG.

Three days after his death, the last defenders on Leros surrender.

The long-range desert group survived three years of war in open desert, a thousand miles from the nearest paved road, without losing a single commanding officer.