James Glancy is “of the 9/11 era. There is a big difference in the experience of Serving in the Royal Marines or the military in the 90s to the post 2001 era…I was in Afghanistan within two months of passing out…I did three Troop Command...

Sir Laurie Bristow was central to the military withdrawal in 2021, there’s nobody better placed to give us the inside story than the last British ambassador in Afghanistan. He takes us through the days and hours counting down, “15th Augu...

Oliver Lee resigned over the Marine A controversy and epitomises moral courage. He took over command of 45 Commando in 2009 as it came back from Afghanistan. Knowing they’d return in 2011 and to fulfil his vision of “Less violence, more ...

Cayle Royce was severely injured in action. His difficult yet inspirational story is told from his mother, Bronwyn’s perspective. Cayle lost both legs above the knee and part of his hand as well as further blast injuries after stepping o...

Frank Ledwidge is angry. His hard-hitting, bleak and perhaps controversial perspective is born out of his work in Afghanistan and  personal investigation, “I wanted to know what the human cost was…The image we had of ourselves was, ...

James Malone remembers leaving Lympstone, “In every fibre of being, I felt like I could do anything…You just wanna get stuck in.”His tour was “Something that definitely changed the course of my life. War does that…to everyone who ...

Tom Corrigan wanted to be an Apache pilot... “I thought, ‘Yeah Apache, that looks pretty awesome, up for a bit of that’. It’s something I’d wanted to do since I was a pretty young lad, I just thought, ‘that looks pretty epic.’”

Nick Denning gives us an insight into his life and responsibilities as a very new Platoon Commander in Helmand Province.“It was all a very rapid, flash-to-bang experience getting there…You want to feel worn-in and seasoned and up-...

Liz McConaghy “amassed 10 Op Herricks”, deployed three months at a time as part of the Chinook Force...“We were there at the beginning of Op Herrick…when Camp Bastion didn’t even exist… and we were there, pretty much at the end, w...

Ken Benbow Served in the 7th Escort Group in the Atlantic convoys. With no torpedoes, just guns and depth charges to protect Allied merchant ships from U-Boats, they sailed back and forth through ‘No Man’s Land’, 1,500 miles of ocean with no ai...

Catapult-Armed Merchant “CAM” ship pilots flew highly secretive one-way missions. David Wright was one of only a handful and their stories are little known.Using rockets and catapults mounted on merchant ships, Hurricane fighter planes w...

Atlantic and Arctic Convoy Veteran, Ron Syson, gives us a gritty account of life as a Merchant Seaman. Very early on, he sailed to Iceland, Greenland and New York, and was alongside when the Normandy caught fire and capsized. He was only 15.

Winston Churchill once wrote, “... the only thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the U-Boat peril”. If The Allies had lost, Britain would have been starved into surrender. 99-year-old John Roberts gives us a fanta...

Paula’s story is about the loss of her husband, Paul Harding, who Served in the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Green Jackets. He joined-up at 18 and was killed in action aged 47, in Basra 2007.We hear about being under attack, fat...

Tip Cullen, former Royal Marines Commando tells us about losing 8 of his friends in the very first operation of Op Telic 1.He’s telling this story “...to keep their memory...

Kirk Bowett Served in The Cheshire Regiment and his deployment to the Middle East began during Op Telic 4, 2004.We hear about his personal experiences of th...

Piers Stacey, aged 17, joined The Corps, “…six days after the Twin Towers were hit…”Joining 42 Commando late 2002, “...we all went into pre-deployment training ...

Neville Johnson left South Africa and joined the British Army in 2003.After basic training, he joined the 2nd Battalion, Royal Regiment of Fusiliers on a cease-fire tour in Belfast, “Those first couple of weeks were a big eye opener for ...

We meet Sarah Davis, Army Air Corps Ground Crew, one of the pioneering women deployed to the frontline during Op Telic 1.Having joined-up in 1999, a time when t...

This is Pat Patterson’s story. A Royal Marine Aircrewman with 845 Naval Air Squadron flying Sea King helicopters aka ‘Junglies’, and his wife also served during the war.Having looked back through his helicopter logbook, he shares with us...

We hear from Andy Merry, 40 Commando, who Served during Op Telic and whose mum marched in the anti-war protests.Andy was first in to the Al-Faw Peninsula with the US Navy SEALs to capture strategic targets. This is his person...

“They…took my husband through our house at gunpoint searching for 'the enemy', as they called them.” Falkland Islander, Carol Phillips, had 3 small children in 1982, “My first thought was…'Are they going to…machine gun us all down?’” The task f...

“'I'm not going to lose my life…here'…I could just see a picture of my wife and my two boys in my mind thinking, 'No, I'm gonna get out.' That was my motivation.” Chris Howe was deep down inside HMS Coventry, D118, “…a dull thud…fol...

“I would happily go to sea with them all over again, cracking bunch of guys, led by a cracking man.” We hear from Mick Dilucia, of HMS Coventry Flight, Coventry’s helicopter team. “The mood was fairly relaxed heading south… none of us believed ...

What was a submarine doing in a war to retake The Falkland Islands? “...the ability to land and recover Special Forces…SAS and SBS, was key.” We hear the fascinating and poignant story of HMS Onyx, the only diesel-electric boat that Served duri...