Cold War Soldier

Formatted for eBook and Paperback.

Author: Steven J Burt
Buy the Book: Amazon

Synopsis:

The British Army - Cold War Germany in the nineteen seventies.

Those on the Iron curtain front line waited in anticipation for what was, at the time, considered a highly likely attack by the Eastern Bloc.

Outnumbered ten to one with aging and in a great deal of cases outdated equipment, they trained, waited, and carried on life in married quarters and barrack blocks as normally as possible; kids went to school, wives swapped gossip at coffee mornings with friends, while single soldiers living in the block made a regular habit of getting blasted .

I joined a Royal Engineer Field Squadron from two years training as a boy soldier in November 1973. I was still six months off my eighteenth birthday when I arrived at the gates of Roberts Barracks Osnabruck.

The Squadron I was joining, 16 Field Squadron, was one of the oldest recorded Squadrons in the Corps; formed in 1825. In June the following year it would be carrying out another duty – a rotational tour of four months active service in Northern Ireland, a province of the UK under siege from the Provisional IRA.

This book is a true account based on my first seven months in the Squadron; from my arrival in November 1973 until our departure on Operation Banner in June 1974. It is not a gung-ho warrie story, it is a factual account of my life during those seven months and the lives of my friends. How the regiment worked and also how we trained and spent our ‘off-time’ as live-in soldiers waiting for condition ‘Black’.

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.