One Marine’s Tale - Leslie Hollis - First Edition Presentation Copy to Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal

HOLLIS, Leslie. One Marine’s Tale. London: Andre Deutsch, 1956.

First edition, first impression. Original blue cloth in the publisher’s dust jacket, priced 15s net. With a foreword by General Lord Ismay. A highly significant presentation copy, inscribed by Hollis on the front free endpaper: “With the author’s regards, To Hollis, June 1956.” From the personal collection of Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal, later Lord Portal of Hungerford, wartime Chief of the Air Staff.

Hollis was far more than a military memoirist. As staff officer to Winston Churchill, he served at the heart of Britain’s wartime command structure, acting as a vital liaison between the Prime Minister and the Chiefs of Staff. He accompanied Churchill to major foreign conferences and was closely involved in the machinery of high command. Before the war, from 1936, Hollis helped establish Britain’s Central Defence Organisation and was one of the architects of the Cabinet War Rooms.

The association with Portal is especially strong. Portal, as Chief of the Air Staff, was one of Churchill’s most important military advisers and a central figure in Allied air strategy, Bomber Command policy, RAF expansion, and Anglo-American coordination. Hollis and Portal belonged to the small circle of men through whom Churchill’s strategic direction was translated into military action. A presentation copy from Hollis, preserved in Portal’s library, is therefore a direct link between two figures embedded in the highest operational and political levels of the British war effort.

The memoir ranges from Hollis’s First World War service as a Royal Marine to his Second World War role beside Churchill, with valuable recollections of Churchill’s working habits, conferences, and command style.

Very good condition. Jacket with rubbing, toning, and a chip to the upper front panel; book firm and clean, with inscription clearly preserved.