Anna Luedicke originally chose to study music when she left school. Her family “thought I was going to play the cello for the rest of my life!”
At university Anna joined the Officer Training Corps (OTC) to meet people, “and I just absolutely loved it.” After completed her degree, Anna applied to the Army Officer Selection Board, passed and got into Sandhurst, where a ninth of the intake was female. “Having not even thought the army was a career… I just felt it was my calling for some reason.”
For Anna, Sandhurst “… was the best year of my life… sleeping out in bashers, escape and evasion, all those sorts of things. It was active and different and stimulating.”
Anna joined the Royal Logistics Corps (RLC) because she wanted something that “…felt would have equal opportunities… the reality has been that it doesn't matter if you are male or female, the opportunities are the same.”
“We were all going off to the Balkans”
On passing out from Sandhurst, Anna joined 27 Regiment RLC in Aldershot as Second Lieutenant, troop commander. She was 24 years old. At the time, there was little awareness of the Balkans conflict. “We were more focused… on Northern Ireland and Angola… because there was a peace-keeping mission over there and election monitoring.”
“It wasn’t until 1995… and then Bosnia came up… it came as a bit of a surprise… it appeared to me to be suddenly; we were all going off to the Balkans.”
By now Anna had been promoted to Lieutenant. In July 1995, 27 Regt, RLC was deployed in support of the 24 Airmobile Brigade, part of the UN’s rapid reaction forces. Anna’s deployment was delayed due to her fiancé’s imminent posting to Northern Ireland. “…I was engaged to be married, and I managed to see my [future] husband for a week, which was great.”
Once in Bosnia, the troops were bussed from Split to Lipa where conditions were challenging. The locals thought they were “…absolutely bonkers for living in tents either in the searing heat or the snow,” hemmed in by a bulk fuel installation on one side and the ammunition depot on the other, “… so that if it went up, it would be a nice, contained blast and we'd all be dead in seconds, that was the comfort we took from our location!”
Leading the Convoys
Anna’s duties included leading convoys of 30 trucks and trailers in challenging terrain, navigating with outdated 50-year-old UN maps. There were also landmines and the local forces to contend with, however Anna “quite liked the thrill… just going out into the middle of nowhere with the rifles, the ammunition, food or fuel or whatever I was taking… and having to map read, I can remember feeling very empowered.”
Things didn’t always go to plan. Anna recalls the time she led a convoy uphill through heavy snow, all except one truck being heavily laden. That truck was in the middle of the convoy and, lacking the momentum and traction given by extra weight, it ground to a halt with half the convoy behind it. Anna thought, “Oh, I’ve lost half my convoy!”
Descending the mountain, “the only way we could brake… was to steer into the side of the cliff.” The unladen truck didn’t have snow chains on and “it was … sliding towards the edge of the cliff! I just said to the driver, ‘jump!’ I though there goes my career over the side of the mountain!” Fortunately, the truck stopped right at the edge.
Human Cost
Travelling through Krajina in northern Bosnia brought home the human cost of conflict. “I remember seeing all these houses on fire and then seeing children's shoes and half packed suitcases on the floor and things, where obviously they'd left before they were killed. The lack of people there, was something I found very haunting.”
“I felt trained to cope with it and mentally resilient. From a personal perspective it was exhilarating… but from a human perspective, tragic… that really made a mark on me.”
Following Bosnia, Anna progressed through the ranks to Brigadier and was appointed Colonel Commandant of the Corps in 2022, leaving the RLC two years later. She was appointed CBE in HM The King’s first Birthday Honours.
She has returned to Bosnia many times, taking her adult children with her, both of whom have chosen to do a Bosnia battlefield study at Sarajevo. “… the repercussions are still there. Lots of lessons, and we should keep on remembering it. Definitely.”
