Rifleman

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

Preview

Failed to add items

Sorry, we are unable to add the item because your shopping cart is already at capacity.

Add to basket failed.

Please try again later

Add to wishlist failed.

Please try again later

Remove from wishlist failed.

Please try again later

Adding to library failed

Please try again

Follow podcast failed

Unfollow podcast failed

Get 30 days of Standard free

£5.99/mo after trial. Cancel monthly.

Try for £0.00

More purchase options

Rifleman

By: Victor Gregg, Rick Stroud - editor

Narrated by: David John, Victor Gregg

Try for £0.00

£5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for £14.00

Bloomsbury presents Rifleman by Victor Gregg, read by David John and Victor Gregg.

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.©2011 Victor Gregg (P)2019 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Victor GreggRick Stroud - editorDavid JohnVictor GreggBloomsbury Publishing

20th Century

Military & War

Modern

Espionage

War

Soviet Union

Military

England

Middle East

Scary

20th Century Military & War Modern Espionage War Soviet Union Military England Middle East Scary

Critic reviews

‘Completely fascinating. This feels like one of the last voices of a vital generation. For the first-hand account of the Dresden fire-bombing alone, this is gripping reading. It has an immediate power throughout that makes war fiction a pale shadow of the real thing'

Victor Gregg is the most remarkable spokesman for the war generation. Searingly honest in his appraisal of what that conflict did to the world, on society and, above all, on himself (Dan Snow)

‘Second World War memoirs are commonplace, but very few soldiers had Victor Gregg's breadth and depth of experience. Rifleman is a thrilling story of a young man in extraordinary circumstances. Yet what makes Gregg's story so enthralling is how he was shaped by his wartime experiences and primed an eventful - and dangerous - life behind the Iron Curtain. Rifleman is an outstanding book that deserves to become a classic'

‘Many people performed extraordinary feats of bravery and lived through an astonishing array of campaigns during the long years of the Second World War, yet few can have seen more action than Rifleman Victor Gregg. His hugely entertaining and often moving memoir is as action-packed as any fiction, and yet this is no novel - Gregg's adventures were real. His is truly an astonishing story'

Gregg's description of the bombing of Dresden is possibly one of the most shocking accounts of warfare you will ever read ...his memoir is a gripping life-story: an incident-packed account of heartache, violence and cunning by a man whose will to survive and unbreakable optimism are a true inspiration

Most relevant

Hard to believe that Victor's life is real and so packed with adventure! A sincere account of one man's life, spanning World War and espionage.

Loved listening to it, especially his own reading.