Reflections on war
AN INTERVIEW WITH FIELD MARSHAL THE LORD BRAMALL KG, GCB, OBE, MC This esteemed military veteran and former head of the British Armed forces discusses his wartime experiences, Russia, the ‘New Cold War’ and the future of warfare
Field Marshal the Lord Bramall discusses his career and the future of warfare
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
“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”
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 personal experiences. Over the next few pages, he shares some reflections on his career, the threats facing us today, as well as thoughts on the future of the British military and its stance in the modern world.
When did you join the armed forces?
I’m very much [of the] WWII generation because… at 16 I watched the Battle of Britain overhead on a vantage point in East Sussex. 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. I was a lance corporal, then I trained to be an officer, and I got the commission and trained in Yorkshire, and after that I took part in the Normandy invasion.
I landed on 7 June and was in action on the 8th near the beaches. I was wounded in July when I was south of Caen, but I was evacuated, and I got back about five weeks later to my battalion just at the time of the closing of the Falaise Pocket. I went up right the way through to Hamburg, so I saw quite a lot of the war.
What are your memories of Normandy? You landed at Juno beach?
I landed at Juno beach on the evening of 7 June. A lot of clutter was on the beach and the ‘beach masters’ were getting everybody off. There was a desolatory air raid – but very desolatory because we did have complete air superiority – and we went inland. We were the motorised infantry of an armoured brigade, and on the next day, 8 June, we went to a place called Bologne et Buiston, which was on the join between the Canadian and the British invasion areas.
We were in sight of Caen and so we went into defensive deployments there and saw the Germans make a big attack on the Canadians, just next door really. It was very loud, but we were able to bring down artillery fire and those things to disrupt anything that came down. We could see the spires of Caen just in front of us.
We then took part in our first big battle, called Epsom. We went down the flank [towards] Carpiquet airfield. The Germans had some of the 12th SS there, threatening the Allied flank, so we were doing flank protection. There was a lot of artillery fire and snipers, but eventually we went round south of Caen. This was a few weeks later, and I was wounded under rather unpleasant circumstances.
What were the circumstances of you becoming wounded?
We were spread out and waiting to go forward after the 43rd Wessex Division had captured Maltot, and we were going forward to seize the bridges over the Orne River. So we were in open ground and suddenly there was a terrific artillery barrage that came down on us. About
seven of us were in a half-track vehicle, so when all this started to come down, we got under what cover we could – under the vehicle. It didn’t really provide that much [protection], but it felt like cover. I was lying next to another platoon commander and we were chatting.
I’m not sure who, but one of us [said] to the other, “Do you think we’ve had it?” in a fairly calm voice. It’s funny really as you should be really nervous. But then suddenly a shell came right down onto the vehicle and went straight through and burst.
When the dust had settled I looked at my companion who was lying next to me: he was dead, and pitch black. He must have got the whole force of the explosion because he was that black with the blast. All the others were dead too – the company commander and sergeant major were the only other ones who were still [alive].
I felt a burning sensation down my left hand side and a lot of things were on fire all around, and I thought, “Oh I’ve caught fire!”, so I remember rather stupidly rolling on my side trying to put the fire out. But it wasn’t the fire, I’d been hit by shrapnel.
At that moment the scout platoon commander came, and I suggested we get all the vehicles that were scattered around away: there was obviously an [enemy] observation post, so we had better get them back so the vehicles can’t be spotted, and I ran over to my own vehicle. It had had its door blown off, but nothing worse than that. We loaded the cars and got them behind cover, and eventually I went to the first-aid post.
In July I got back to our battalion just as the Falaise Pocket was being closed, and after that of course the war was absolutely up our street as motorised infantry – we went storming up to northwest France.
I received a slight bullet wound there, on the Somme. I like to say I was wounded on the Somme, but I was only away for a few days. Then we reached Holland. This was on the flanks of [Operation] Market Garden, so we arrived and experienced a lot of fighting along various canals. I became an intelligence officer for the rest of the way up into Holland, which saw some quite heavy fighting during the last weeks of the war.
Can you describe the action for which you were awarded the Military Cross?
In Holland I was out on patrol, going to find out where the Germans were, and we got into a bit of trouble in a wood. I was more or less in front, when my sergeant was hit, and we were stuck down and we had to get ourselves out of it. So I managed to move around and throw grenades, then I charged somebody with my Sten gun, which luckily worked. We took some of the Germans prisoner and others buzzed off.
“WHEN THE DUST HAD SETTLED I LOOKED AT MY COMPANION WHO WAS LYING NEXT TO ME. HE WAS DEAD, AND PITCH BLACK”
You were personally involved in the Imperial War Museum’s Holocaust exhibition. Can you describe your experience at Belsen?
I wasn’t one of the people who actually went into Belsen, but I was very conscious of it because we were on the centre line running straight into [the camp]. My battalion was moving forward and suddenly we got the order to halt. Apparently the Germans came out with a white flag, and the message came that there was something there that... it wasn’t right to fight over… I didn’t know whether it was a lunatic asylum or what it was, but… we were told to dig in and not go any further. Then all the medical teams were brought up and the whole awfulness of Belsen was revealed.
Belsen wasn’t a death camp like Auschwitz was with gas chambers. In fact they were trying to hide [the camp] and they were sending [the inmates] back, but of course the Germans couldn’t look after them – they didn’t have enough food. They had sadistic guards and the inmates were dying in their hundreds and thousands. It was death by no care, and I think it dawned on all of us…
After the war ended in Europe, you were re-posted to the Far East. What was it like seeing those scenes of devastation and witnessing the level of destruction on both continents?
I was able to see Hiroshima and Hamburg within a few months of each other. Hamburg was just as bad as Hiroshima. We’d seen a certain amount of devastation all the way across northwest Europe, but until we got to Hamburg, we were never actually fighting in a big town. We saw the destruction of villages and so on, but by the time we got to Hamburg, it had received a series of the most appalling raids – it had had an enormous number of people killed and it looked like H.G. Wells’s [vision of] things to come. It was terrible.
When we got to Japan, I was able to go and see Hiroshima. It had had the same number of casualties as Hamburg, but [it had happened] in an instant instead of over a series of raids. You couldn’t really tell a town had been there. Hamburg was gutted and everything was piles of rubble, but it didn’t look utterly destroyed.
But in Hiroshima, two or three buildings was all that was left. The number of casualties was the same – c. 150,000 – but in Hiroshima it was done in a fraction [of the time].
As I say in The Bramall Papers, it’s a realisation of what total war was going to be and the world could not be stupid enough to get itself into a horrible war like that. Nuclear weapons, of course they are intended for threatening – not for using on other people, but threatening other people in case they want to do something nasty against you.
To what extent do you think your experiences have shaped your career, as well as your military views?
I think it convinced me that wars in which these sorts of things happen had to be somehow prevented. This is how the whole business of deterrent came to be… I think that when I commanded a division, I gave a lecture on what we were doing, and my first thing was [to say] “We are here not to fight a war but to prevent a war, and this is what we were doing”. But to prevent a war you had to be ready to fight.
You had to be ready to fight a war – not to action it, but to take part in one and of course be willing… This is why we had to adopt the nuclear deterrent and the strategy of flexible response. I mean I now have… different views about nuclear weapons and ideas, but back then I accepted the flexible response, which is that you only had nuclear weapons in the background. You were determined to confront the enemy, if you had to, with conventional forces, but you had to let them know that if you weren’t able to hold them by conventional means, somehow, in the background, you might use nuclear weapons, which would of course be as damaging to them as it is to you.
What is your opinion on the current threats facing Europe?
I would say, “What do you mean by threat?” If you mean, “Is [Russia] going to have another go at taking over central Europe?” I would say absolutely not… One of the things that is influencing [Putin] to make him appear a threat is that when the Cold War had finished we moved a whole NATO front line and NATO forces right up onto the Russian border. Well if you were a Russian – not just Putin – you would think it was terrible.
“BY THE TIME WE GOT TO HAMBURG, IT HAD RECEIVED A SERIES OF THE MOST APPALLING RAIDS – IT HAD HAD AN ENORMOUS NUMBER OF PEOPLE KILLED AND IT LOOKED LIKE H.G. WELLS’S VISION OF THINGS TO COME. IT WAS TERRIBLE”