Armoured Guardsman

“A rare treat: a well-written account of what it was like to serve as a junior rank in the Brigade of Guards during the Second World War.” —The Guards Magazine

The outbreak of World War II brought many changes to Britain’s Brigade of Guards. The dress-parade units had always maintained a full combat capacity and made a relatively easy transition into a new unit, the Guards Armoured Division. The Guards landed in Normandy on 26 June 1944 and steadily fought their way across northern Europe.

Robert Boscawen was a tank commander in the 1st Coldstream Guards and had four tanks shot from under him. On the fourth occasion he was badly wounded and burned, making a difficult postwar recovery. The years after the war, however, also brought both business and political success, culminating in a twenty-three-year career in Parliament. Boscawen’s account of Britain’s elite at war is based on his wartime diaries.

“Tells the author’s story in a most readable yet matter-of-fact way. It is one of the finest accounts of armoured warfare that I have ever read and I have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone who has not.” —Tank Regiment Magazine