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    Unavailable
    Rifleman: A Front-Line Life from Alamein and Dresden to the Fall of the Berlin Wall
    Unavailable
    Rifleman: A Front-Line Life from Alamein and Dresden to the Fall of the Berlin Wall
    Unavailable
    Rifleman: A Front-Line Life from Alamein and Dresden to the Fall of the Berlin Wall
    Ebook320 pages4 hours

    Rifleman: A Front-Line Life from Alamein and Dresden to the Fall of the Berlin Wall

    By Victor Gregg

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    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Born into a working-class family in London in 1919, Victor Gregg enlisted in the Rifle Brigade at nineteen, was sent to the Middle East and saw action in Palestine. Following service in the western desert and at the battle of Alamein, he joined the Parachute Regiment and in September 1944 found himself at the battle of Arnhem. When the paratroopers were forced to withdraw, Gregg was captured. He attempted to escape, but was caught and became a prisoner of war; sentenced to death in Dresden for attempting to escape and burning down a factory, only the allies' infamous raid on the city the night before his execution saved his life.

    Gregg's fascinating story, told in a voice that is good-natured and completely original, continues after the end of the war. In the fifties he became chauffeur to the Chairman of the Moscow Norodny bank in London, involved in shady dealings and strange meetings with MI5, MI6 and the KGB. His adventures, though, were not over - in 1989, on one of his many motorbike expeditions into Eastern Europe, he found himself at a rally of 700 people in a field in Sopron at a fence that formed part of the barrier between the Soviet Union and the West. Vic cut the wire, and a few weeks later the Berlin Wall itself was destroyed - a truly unexpected coda to an incredible life lived to the full.

    This is the story of a true survivor.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
    Release dateFeb 7, 2011
    ISBN9781408817575
    Unavailable
    Rifleman: A Front-Line Life from Alamein and Dresden to the Fall of the Berlin Wall
    Author

    Victor Gregg

    Victor Gregg was born in London in 1919 and joined the army in 1937, serving first in the Rifle Brigade in Palestine and North Africa, notably at the Battle of Alamein, and then with the Parachute Regiment, at the Battle of Arnhem. As a prisoner of war he survived the bombing of Dresden to be repatriated in 1946. The story of his adult years, Rifleman, was published by Bloomsbury in 2011, the prequel, King's Cross Kid, in 2013 and the final part of his trilogy, Soldier, Spy: A Survivor's Tale, in 2016; all were co-written with Rick Stroud. Victor Gregg died in 2021, aged 102.

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    • 5/5
      Powerful first-person account of a busy war, with post-war adventures on the fringes of espionage. Running the gamut from El Alamein, spending time with Popski behind enemy lines, on to Arnhem and the personal experience of the Dresden firestorm, it is a rollicking tale, which does not shy away from the author's self-perceived failings. His tribute to all women who with "understanding and devotion" help repair the "fractured minds and bodies" of those who have experienced "the front line of military combat" is particularly poignant and resonant.