Welsh Guards - Postwar

Postwar

Shortly after the end of the war the 3rd Battalion was disbanded while the 2nd Battalion was placed in suspended animation. In 1947 the 1st Welsh Guards were dispatched to Palestine, then under British control, while it was in a volatile and violent situation. The Welsh Guards were part of the 1st Guards Brigade and performed internal security (IS) duties while there, before leaving in 1948 during the British withdrawal and when the state of Israel was declared. The Regiment had its colour trooped for the first time in 1949.

In 1950 the regiment arrived in West Germany as part of the 4th Guards Brigade, part of the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR). In 1952 the regiment joined the Berlin Brigade in West Berlin, an enclave in Communist East Germany during tense times between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Warsaw Pact. The Welsh Guards returned home the following year and soon after deployed to the British-controlled Suez Canal Zone (SEZ) in Egypt. As previously in Palestine, the Welsh Guards' time in Egypt was quite turbulent. They performed internal security duties there. They remained in the SEZ until the British withdrawal in 1956. Shortly afterwards the British Army would be embroiled in the Suez War with Egypt, though the Welsh Guards were not to be involved directly.

In 1960 the regiment deployed to West Germany again, and in 1965 to Aden, another part of the declining British Empire. They were to return home the following year. In 1970 the regiment arrived again in West Germany, this time at Munster, as part of 4th Armoured Brigade.

In 1972 came deployment to Northern Ireland, then embroiled in violence later known as "The Troubles". During its tour of duty the regiment lost Sergeant Phillip Price in a terrorist attack by the Provisional Irish Republican Army on the Oxford Street Bus Depot in Belfast, one of a series of terrorist attacks in the city which became known as "Bloody Friday". The following year the Welsh Guards were dispatched to the province again and during this period lost Guardsman David Roberts in a landmine explosion.

In 1976 the Welsh Guards were part of the British contingent of the United Nations force deployed to Cyprus in the aftermath of the Turkish invasion of the island in 1974.

In 1977 the regiment arrived in West Berlin again, and then in 1979 once more in the midst of the volatile situation in Northern Ireland, they lost Guardsman Paul Fryer to a booby trap bomb. On 9 July 1981, Daniel Barrett, aged 15 years, was sitting on the garden wall of his home in Havana Court, Ardoyne, North Belfast, when he was shot dead by a soldier of the Welsh Guards.