Fearless soldier who speaks truth to power
Field Marshal lord Bramall, universally known as dwin (short for edwin), is a remarkable man. For a start, he is one of the dwindling band of British soldiers who landed in Normandy in 1944 — indeed, he won an MC there.
Among many reasons why i have always admired him is that he is fearless about voicing unpalatable truths, whether about the past, present or future.
early in this collection of his speeches and writings, he says that Hitler’s army was ‘probably the most formidable and effective fighting machine since the Roman legions’; that the Wehrmacht was impressively better than the wartime British Army.
Historians share this verdict, but it took courage for dwin to brave the wrath of many other veterans who were around when he first said it 40 years ago. He likewise told me that when he joined his battalion of the Rifle Corps on the battlefield, it was ‘worn out’.
‘ They had shot their bolt. everybody who was any good had been promoted or become a casualty.’
When this line appeared in a book of mine, it brought down the indignation of surviving fellow officers on dwin’s head, which he could have deflected by saying it was all young Hastings’s fault for misquoting him.
instead, he increased my respect for him by shrugging to the old boys: ‘What are you complaining about? You know it was true.’
He has carried his commitment to speak truth to power to the highest commands in Britain’s Armed Forces and then through retirement.
in a 1972 speech to officers of the armoured division, which he then commanded in Germany, he said: ‘Why are we here? The answer is simple: to prevent war, not to fight it.’
This is a simple lesson that our modern politicians, busy dismantling Britain’s Armed Forces, would do well to heed: our best chance of avoiding having to fight another ghastly war comes from convincing enemies we are willing and able to defend ourselves if we must.
Bramall reprised this theme in a 1992 speech: ‘No one, in any country, likes paying insurance premiums. When everything is quiet, we bitterly resent doing so. But my goodness, when the wind blows and the floods come and we find ourselves in the worst winter or monsoon or whatever for five years, how glad we are that we didn’t suspend paying those premiums.’
As Chief of the defence Staff in 1984, after President Reagan had announced his enthusiasm for the ‘Star Wars’ anti-ballistic missile defence system, Bramall unhesitatingly offered his absolutely justified opinion that the whole thing was nonsense and should signal funny farm time for anybody who advocated it.
He has a bold eye for pernicious nonsense — for instance, denouncing in a 1993 House of lords speech a clamour for war crimes charges to be brought against some officers and men of 3 Para for supposed atrocities during the 1982 Falklands War.
‘The allegations are complete hearsay,’ Bramall said. ‘if there is any doubt, should not the benefit go to those who went 8,000 miles to risk their lives for our kith and kin and for the benefit of the whole nation?’
in 2001, after the success of the initial allied operations to topple the Taliban government of Afghanistan, he warned: ‘i hope that we do not spoil it by forcing bodies of British troops on to the reluctant Afghans to do heaven- knows- what for heaven-knows-how-long.’ He displayed similar scepticism about the 2003 campaign to unseat Saddam Hussein, saying: ‘This time, the aim is much more obscure.’
Before the event, he rehearsed in print the prudent words of General Gerald Templer before the disastrous 1956 Suez invasion: ‘Of course we can get to Cairo, but what i want to know is this: what the bloody hell do we do when we get there?’ B RAMAll also offers some good jokes — for instance, a story of his old chief Field Marshal Montgomery visiting Winchester College and asking a pupil to name the greatest general of World War ii.
The boy instantly replied: ‘Alexander’, which, for a moment, threw Monty. Then he recovered and said: ‘Quite right, quite right! Alex always did everything i told him.’
it is, of course, a badge of shame for our society that lord Bramall was subjected to a 2015 persecution following fabricated claims of sexual misconduct, for which the police have now been obliged to provide grovelling apologies and compensation.
This book reminds us how fortunate we are to have had the sort of leadership dwin provided to the Armed Forces for so many years — together with the wisdom that he still offers to this day.