GENERAL the LORD DANNATT - BOOTS ON THE GROUND and D-DAY

Wednesday 2 October 2019
Cambridge Union Society
General the Lord Dannatt will share his unvarnished views of our military.

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He speaks from the vantage point of a forty-year military career that started as an infantryman, wearing his own boots on the ground and ended in senior military office. His perspective takes in a broad sweep in the year we marked the 75th anniversary of the D-Day Landings on the beaches of Normandy in June 1944 culminating in victory in Europe and Japan in 1945.

World War II is still sharply present in our minds. Families across our country lost loved ones who live vividly in the memory and whose loss and service are commemorated every November on Remembrance Sunday.

Acute memories are the same for the families of soldiers in this century’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq where soldiers the infantrymen of our own Royal Anglian Regiment are still serving, today.

Richard Dannatt was commissioned in the Green Howards and served first on the streets of Belfast and then the battlefields of Bosnia and Kosovo. He oversaw the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq from the heights of command: Commander-in-Chief Land Command and Chief of the General Staff, the professional head of the British Army (2006-2009).

Richard Dannatt lived the war in Afghanistan, as a parent. He came to know the acute fear of having a loved one fighting on a foreign land. While he was embroiled in the key decisions of the military mission as a commander, his middle son, Bertie, a former Captain in the Grenadier Guards, served two tours of Iraq and one in Afghanistan.

“In the five years I was Commander in Chief and Chief of the General Staff,” he has said,
“hardly a day went by when I wasn’t informed about the death of a soldier or very serious injury of soldiers. The protocol was that my staff wouldn’t tell me until they knew it wasn’t Bertie. I experienced that same nightmare as other people.”

There were 453 British deaths in Afghanistan, more than 7,300 were treated in field hospital for battlefield injuries, non-combat wounds or disease. In Iraq, there were 173 deaths and 5,800 were treated in field hospitals. Gratefully, Bertie Dannatt was not among them and returned home.

Richard Dannatt is a vocal champion of his troops and their families. A soldier’s soldier. He faced controversy over his outspokenness, in particular his calls for a better deal for troops, arguing for higher pay, better equipment and conditions.

While still the head of the British Army in 2006, he famously openly criticised the government’s handling of its wars in the Middle East. A few years later (having left the army and then a Tory peer) he accused Gordon Brown of letting down troops by a lack of funding and Tony Blair of a lack of “moral courage” for not insisting that his Chancellor properly paid for Britain’s operations.

Since retiring from active duty in 2009, he was installed as the 159th Constable of the Tower of London. During his tenure the moving installation called 'Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red' of tens of thousands of blood-red ceramic poppies blanketed the Moat surrounding the Tower to mark, in 2014, the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War and the 880,246 British and Colonial soldiers who lost their lives in it.

The poppies sold raised funds for armed forces charities including the Royal British Legion and Help for Heroes of which Lord Dannatt was a founder patron and is still its President. He is a Trustee of the Normandy Memorial Trust which is putting a national memorial in Normandy to mark the 75th anniversary of D Day on 6th June 2019.  Richard Dannatt remains actively engaged on behalf of ‘his soldiers’ and their welfare.

 

He published his autobiography: “Leading from the Front” in 2010, and a second book: “Boots on the Ground – Britain and her Army since 1945” in October 2016.  
He will sign copies of “Boots on the Ground” which will be on sale at the Cambridge Union.

Proceeds and funds raised will be donated to the Royal Anglian Benevolent Charity. Charity Commission (No 1085050)  www.royalanglianregiment.com/benevolent-charity.html

Privately, he divides his time between London and his family home in Norfolk where he runs the family arable farm. He is a Deputy Lieutenant for both Greater London and Norfolk. 

He is married with four children, and eight grandsons.  His wife, Philippa, was High Sheriff of Norfolk 2014-2015 and is currently Lord-Lieutenant of Norfolk.  He loves watching cricket and is an Ambassador for the Lords’ Taverners in Norfolk.  He plays golf and tennis, enjoys shooting and fishing and supports Norwich City FC. 

SPONSORED BY CATHERINE JONES OF CAMBRIDGE, 9 BRIDGE STREET, CAMBRIDGE CB2 1UA
THE CAMBRIDGE JEWELLER
 
Event type:
Running time:

Doors: 18:00

Talk: 18:30 - 19:30

Signing: 19:30 - 19:45

All running times are approximate and subject to change