He was however best known for his role in Operation Keelhaul, the forced repatriation of Russian, Ukrainian and other prisoners of war, some of whom had collaborated with the Nazis, to the Soviet Union where many of them were executed or sent to labor camps.

[2] He joined the Rangers (King's Royal Rifle Corps), a famous London Territorial Infantry Regiment, in 1934 and served in World War II in Greece, Crete, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Italy and Austria, becoming the youngest brigadier in the British Army in 1944, when he became Brigadier General Staff (BGS) of V Corps, commanded first by Lieutenant-General Charles Allfrey and then by Lieutenant-General Charles Keightley.

He was appointed to the Distinguished Service Order in 1941, made a Commander of the Legion of Merit (US) and awarded the Croix de Guerre.

[2] He served as Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry of Supply 1951–54 and Minister of State at the Board of Trade from 1954, becoming a Privy Counsellor.

In 1962 he was created Baron Aldington, of Bispham in the County Borough of Blackpool, and increased his business interests, serving as the chairman of several companies.

[2] Tolstoy had written several books (Victims of Yalta in 1977, Stalin's Secret War in 1981, The Minister and the Massacres in 1986) about the alleged complicity of British politicians and officers with Stalin's forces in the murder of White Russian exiles from Soviet Rule, Cossacks, Croatian paramilitaries and collaborationist fugitives from Tito, as well as 11,000 Slovenian anti-communist fighters.

This order was combined with a requirement that Tolstoy underwrite the cost of Aldington's defence to obtain leave to appeal.