It helped that Forrest-Webb's father-in-law, Bill Waterson, was an ex-Armoured Corps man with thirty years of service including six years of war combat experience in North Africa, Sicily, Italy and finally Austria. With the assistance of the Ministry of Defence, Forrest-Webb undertook extensive research that included visits to various armoured regiments in the UK and Germany, and a large number of interviews with veteran members of the Armoured Corps, men who had experienced actual battle conditions in their vehicles from mined D-Day beaches under heavy fire, to warfare in more recent conflicts. As modern warfare tends to be extremely mobile, and as a worldwide event would surely include the threat of atomic weapons, it was decided that the book would mainly feature the armoured divisions already stationed in Germany facing the growing number of Soviet tanks and armoured artillery. A senior British army officer, General Sir John Hackett, had written a book of the likely strategies of the Allied forces if a war actually took place and, shortly after its publication, he suggested to his publisher Futura that it might be interesting to produce a novel based on the Third World War but from the point of view of the soldier on the ground.īob Forrest-Webb, an author and ex-serviceman who had written several best-selling novels, one of which became a Disney film, was commissioned to write the book. In the west, Allied forces, British, American, and armies from virtually all the western countries, raised the levels of their training and readiness. Soviet armies massed behind the 'Iron Curtain' that stretched from the Baltic to the Black Sea. During the late 1970s and early 80s tension in Europe, between east and west, had grown until it appeared that war was virtually unavoidable.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |