A DAILY Echo reader has recalled the uncle who was one of the last soldiers still fighting on horseback.

Norman Wilkins told the Echo about his mother’s brother, George White, who died 70 years ago after being wounded at El Alamein.

“George first joined the King’s Dragoon Guards as a young man in the early 1930s”, said Norman of Christchurch.

The King’s Dragoon Guards was a well-respected regiment that had been in existence since 1685.

George enjoyed his time with the guards and having his own horse but, when the regiment decided in 1938 to stop using horses and, like other sections of the army, opt for mechanical transport instead to mobilise its men, he decided to leave.

He then joined the Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry, one of the few regiments still using horses.

“He was serving as a Lance Corporal with the Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry and the Royal Armoured Corps at the Battle of Aqaqqir, in the final stage of the El Alamein break-through in November 1942 when he was wounded”, said Norman.

Fighting was fierce and many perished. George died of his wounds in a Middle East hospital. He was only 29. His body is buried in the Heliopolis War Grave Cemetery in Cairo.