I've Had a Good Innings.

Sidney Allinson is a Victoria-based communications consultant, Canadian
news correspondent for Britain’s The Army Quarterly and Defence, and
author of The Bantams: The Untold Story of World War I.

This admirable memoir recounts the experiences of a career soldier and diplomat who epitomizes the phrase “an officer and a gentleman.” Colonel Paul Mayer served Canada for more than 50 years, in war and in peace, first as a front-line infantry officer in the Second World War and the Korean War, then as a peacekeeper in such dangerous hot-spots as Vietnam, the Congo, and Dominican Republic, and finally as personnel director of two international development banks.

He starts with the story of his arrival in Canada as a teenager, proud that his family came from a long line of soldiers in the British army since 1689. He followed this tradition by becoming a career officer in the Canadian army the very week the Second World War began. The dangers he encountered from then on demanded every ounce of inherited steely resolve, ranging from German panzer tank assaults, and Korean human-wave attacks, to narrowly escaping from being staked out to die on an anthill by homicidal African rebels, and surviving an assassination attempt in Santo Domingo that was thwarted by his equally resolute wife.

His lucid style and clear recollections are all the more impressive, considering the book was written during his 90th year. The book is arranged into 46  short chapters, long anecdotes really, that suit the story’s spritely tone. The publisher has not served the author well, though. The book’s badly reproduced photographs and non-standard typesetting impart an unfinished look. Still, this account of real-life adventures is well worth reading.