With the advent of the second world war, my father, Edward Grace, who has died aged 96, immediately enlisted in the Gordon Highlanders Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, and fought with the 6th Battalion during campaigns in north Africa and Italy. Severely wounded during the fighting at Anzio in 1944, he was awarded the Military Cross for exceptional leadership and courage as platoon commander.
Born in London, he was educated at Westminster school, where he excelled in languages, music and sports. Deciding not to take up a university place at Cambridge to read modern languages, he trained as a solicitor at the Law Society's School of Law. Resuming his legal career after the war, he worked for British Rail and for more than 30 years as solicitor general of London Transport. From 1980 until 1990, he was East Sussex coroner.
On his retirement from London Transport, he turned to writing and published a memoir of his war experiences, The Perilous Road to Rome and Beyond (1993). This led to his being invited to participate in several BBC interviews, including the documentary series Battlefields in 2001, and he travelled to Rome for similar interviews in Italy. In 2004, he revisited the former battlefields of Anzio and Monte Cassino. The return to Italy was of great importance to him: as well as enriching his life with many Italian friends, it gave him the opportunity to write an epilogue to his memoir, bringing it up to date with the vision of reconciliation and peace that he so strongly endorsed. The book was republished by Pen and Sword in 2007.
After demobilisation in 1946, he married Ivy Henderson, a WRAF officer he had met while convalescing. She died in 2001. He is survived by three children, Daphne, Jennifer and me, and four grandchildren.