REFLECTIONS ON WAR
“I JOINED THE HOME GUARD AT 17 WHEN THERE WAS STILL SOME THREAT OF INVASION AND THEN I JOINED THE ARMY IN THE RANKS AS AN ORDINARY SOLDIER IMMEDIATELY AFTER I LEFT SCHOOL WHEN I WAS 18”
Over a prestigious 75-year career, Lord Edwin Bramall has served at nearly every level of the British military. As a young officer he took part in the Allied invasion of Normandy, while much later he would play a very different role in another invasion – helping to mastermind the San Carlos landings in the Falklands War, 1982. There is little wonder then that he is considered one of the country’s foremost military thinkers, both at the strategic and tactical levels.
After WWII, he went on to serve his country during several further conflicts, and throughout the Cold War. After retiring from the army, he sat in the House of Lords, where he was a vocal critic of the Second Iraq War, as well as the nuclear deterrent. Now aged 94, he remains sharp, incisive, with a unique insight into recent military history.
Lord Bramall’s recent book, The Bramall Papers: Reflections on War and Peace, contains a wealth of his speeches, notes, and letters, relating his thoughts on military strategy as well as his own
