For a first-hand account of life in the infantry, Robert Woollcombe’s Lion Rampant is hard to beat. It’s a personal memoir of his time spent as a front-line infantry officer with the King’s Own Scottish Borderers during the battle for Normandy. Vivid and at times touching, he brings to life the camaraderie of war but also the confusion as communication sometimes – inevitably – breaks down. From the Normandy bocage, via house-to-house and hand-to-hand combat in Flemish towns, Woollcombe takes us to the banks of the Rhine crossing with clarity, dignity, and compassion for not only his colleagues’ troubles but also, at times, those of his enemy.
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