Royal Welsh

Yeah.

So I think we deployed as, as part of a, of a brigade which was spread across the Basra area, uh, and broadly speaking, split into two core, um, fighting elements, which was the Royal Welsh Battle Group and the 4 Rifles Battle Group.

We sort of mixed units to ensure that we had, um, a healthy mix of the right machinery, tools, and weaponry of war.

Um, so part of 4 Rifles actually stayed at the, what was known as the COB, which is now Basra International Airport, um, along with the, the Royal Welsh Battle Group.

And then, um, down at what was then known as Basra Palace, which was a former palace of Saddam Hussein, um, which is down in the south of Basra.

So you can largely see it on this map, and for those of us who've got the visual, um, it's sort of the area that's like a little island with a little bit sliding up with a few lakes.

Mm.

And that's known as Basra Palace, which essentially consisted of about five palaces, quite literally, uh, and obviously supporting buildings.

One was a Yorks guy.

One was Royal Welsh.

And it was infuriating.

Fucking infuriating.

He was a music teacher.

He went through the army music college and came out top of his year and was a bandmaster for Royal Welsh and things like that.

So any brass instrument or woodwind instrument, he had to be able to teach.

He also taught piano at home as well.

So it all happened throughout 1944.

We sort of slowly advanced through the jungle, of which my granddad was one of the troops in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers.

and retook the country, you know, and then of course, you know, Hiroshima sort of ended the war, but the war didn't really end there in Burma because Burma at this point had been fractured.

You'd got the Burmese, the Burman majority who'd sided with the Japanese, but then all the fringe countries ethnic minorities, the Shan, the Chin, the Karen, all the people that lived in the jungle areas on the outskirts of the country, they sided with the British.

Welsh, I take

it? Was he Welsh? No, he wasn't Welsh.

I don't know why he joined the Royal Welsh.

I think he'd originally signed up, he volunteered for the Royal Artillery and then decided he wanted to be a proper soldier and then transferred into the Royal Welsh because they were going out east.

What was going on over there?

It's Op BRIT in Estonia, so there's a-- It was-- The Royal Welsh are there at the moment.

So it was basically I was watching lots of England World Cup games surrounded by Welsh people.

Uh, and then I've been back in Gibraltar for a few weeks, and it's been pretty nonstop, actually, for-- especially for the summer holidays.