Book Launch: The Unmaking of Eddie Muir

About the Book Launch

Join Angus Roxburgh as he launches his book titled 'The Unmaking of Eddie Muir'. A story set in Edinburgh, the Highlands and Europe during and after the Second World War, and features Operation Infatuate as its central event. His novel details the role of the 7th/9th Royal Scots in the liberation of the Dutch island of Walcheren in November 1944 by the 52nd Lowland Division.

It is one of the least known, yet most important battles of the War. By the autumn of 1944 the Allies had landed in Normandy and advanced as far as Belgium, even liberating the port of Antwerp. Antwerp was vital to the rest of the war, because supply lines from Normandy were overstretched. But it could not be used because the approaches to it - through the Scheldt estuary - were guarded by Hitler’s “Atlantic Wall”, specifically by tens of thousands of troops on the Dutch island of Walcheren.

In early November, 4 Commando staged a night-time amphibious landing on Walcheren at the town of Flushing, followed by 4 KOSB, 5 KOSB and 7th/9th Royal Scots. The Allies had bombed the dykes around the island and flooded it completely. So to assault the German HQ in the Grand Hotel Britannia the Royal Scots had to wade through streets full of tidal seawater rising to shoulder-height. They were told to expect a garrison of 50 Germans in the hotel. In fact there were 600. Twenty Royal Scots were killed, including three officers, in this action alone.

Angus Roxburgh's father was one of the RS troops involved in this - though he scarcely spoke about it, other than to recall that he lost some of his mates in the swirling seawater.

The “hero” of the novel, Eddie Muir, begins the war as a conscientious objector, eventually volunteers and joins the Royal Scots, and after falling ill during the assault on Walcheren, ends up near Bremen in Germany on VE-Day. The novel is the story of how a young man endures the horrors of war (and the camaraderie) and is changed for ever by them.

About the Speaker

Angus Roxburgh am a former BBC foreign correspondent, based for many years in Moscow and Brussels. Angus has published several non-fiction books and this is his first novel.

Host or Publisher Royal Scots Club