I guarded Rudolf Hess

I had the misfortune to meet Lord Richards on probably the darkest day of his 42 years in the military. In July 2009 I went to visit the then Commander-in-Chief UK Land Forces in his office on the edge of Salisbury plain and we spoke about his career, and the army in general. All the while staff officers ran in and out with updates and requests concerning a double IED attack which had left five soldiers of 2nd Battalion, The Rifles, dead and a dozen wounded — the single worst incident in our 13-year involvement in Afghanistan. Richards was, as the title of his auto-biography suggests, in total command of himself and the situation — eloquent but concise, knowledgeable and incisive; and while far from unfeeling, his judgment was completely unclouded by emotion. He was the model of what one would hope a four-star general to be.

His career as an officer really took off — as does the book — in 1986 when he became Brigade Major of the British Infantry contingent of the Nato armies in West Berlin. He describes well the odd mindset among soldiers who were keenly aware that, should the Soviet tank divisions ever decide to sweep west, they’d be unlikely to be stopped by anything short of tactical nuclear weapons until they hit the Channel.

However, while the strategic and tactical analysis is insightful, and the history informative, it is the peppering of personal anecdotes which makes this book so readable. This includes such oddities as guarding the last Nazi war criminal, Rudolf Hess, at Spandau — and later identifying his body — and the secondment of himself and some of his men to the chorus of the Royal Ballet when they went on tour to Germany.