Battalion: A British infantry unit's actions from the battle of El Alamein to the Elbe, 1942-1945.

By Alastair Borthwick

Alastair Borthwick's Battalion is the widely acclaimed story of a British Army infantry unit in the Second World War. Written in Germany just after VE Day, Battalion captures the immediate memories of troops at war. It gives the soldier's view of events, avoiding moralising or sensationalism, and making full use of first-hand accounts of battles. The result is a sharp depiction of war and of the extraordinary circumstances in which the soldiers frequently found themselves. The book is notable for the sheer amount of front line action. The planning and execution of battles is minutely described, and the lot of the ordinary soldier is related with humour and immediacy. It is a tale of remarkable courage and application to duty. It records in detail a period of history, reflecting the experiences of many Allied infantrymen and providing a unique testament to the trials and tribulations of conflict. The battalion in question is the 5th Seaforth Highlanders of the 51st (Highland) Division. Alastair Borthwick joined the battalion in 1943, as the soldiers fought a series of desert battles to push the German Army out of North Africa. They then took part in the conquest of Sicily and later, following behind the D-Day landings, advanced into Germany, fighting several vicious battles in the final days of the war. 'An outstanding book' Max Hastings, Daily Telegraph

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vertebrate Digital
• Release date: Dec 19, 2014
• ISBN: 9781910240250

Reviews for Battalion

[wprecht_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was originally published in 1946 as Sans peur: The history of the 5th (Caithness and Sutherland) battalion, the Seaforth Highlanders, 1942-1945. It was written by the battalion intelligence officer immediately following the conclusion of the war while the battalion was in quarters preparing to be demobilized. The CO realized that once the troops were demobilized the opportunity to gather and write the definitive history of the unit would be lost. So he asked Borthwick, who had written a travel book before the war, to write one while he had a captive audience and access to the battalion papers. The result is a very readable account of the poor bloody infantry through most of the major actions in the European Theater. Unlike other books, you don't get a lot of the bigger picture and grand strategy. These things were not known to the average soldier and the author tries to keep the reader to things that were known at the time by the soldiers in the battalion. The book includes a nice collection of original photographs and a few maps. My pet peave for military books is the usual lack or maps or very poor maps. The author included about a dozen and they were pretty good although a few higher level maps would have been handy to locate the battalion's actions is the greater scheme of things. But, as I noted, this wasn't the author's intent. All in all a good read if you can find it. I picked up my copy from the Imperial War Museum in London, so....