Editing Raymond Williams (section)

=== World War II ===
Williams interrupted his education to serve in the [[Second World War]]. He enlisted in the [[British Army]] in late 1940, but stayed at Cambridge to take his exams in June 1941, the month when [[Operation Barbarossa|Germany invaded Russia]]. Joining the military was against the Communist [[party line (politics)|party line]] at the time. According to Williams, his Communist Party membership lapsed without him formally resigning.{{sfn|Williams|1979|p=52}}

When Williams joined the army, he was assigned to the [[Royal Corps of Signals]], which was a typical assignment for university undergraduates. He received initial training in military communications, but was reassigned to [[artillery]] and [[anti-tank]] weapons. He was chosen to serve as an officer in the Anti-Tank Regiment of the [[Guards Armoured Division]] in 1941–1945, being sent into early fighting in the [[Invasion of Normandy]] after the [[D-Day (military term)|D-Day]] [[Normandy Landings]]. He writes in ''Politics and Letters'', "I don't think the intricate chaos of that Normandy fighting has ever been recorded."{{sfn|Williams|1979|p=56}} He commanded a unit of four tanks and mentions losing touch with two of them while fighting against [[Waffen-SS]] [[Panzer]] forces in the [[Bocage]]. He never discovered what happened to them as a withdrawal of troops ensued.{{citation needed|date=February 2022}}

Williams took part in the [[Western Front (World War II)|fighting from Normandy]] in 1944 and [[North-West Europe Campaign of 1944–1945|through Belgium and the Netherlands to Germany]] in 1945. There he was involved in liberating a smaller [[Nazi concentration camp]], which was afterwards used by the Allies to detain [[SS]] officers.<ref name="INGLIS">{{cite book|last1=Inglis|first1=Fred|title=Raymond Williams|date=1998|publisher=Routledge|location=London|isbn=978-0415187169|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_4pC-Fwd-PEC&dq=Raymond+Williams+Concentration+camp&pg=PA93}}</ref>

He was shocked to find that [[Bombing of Hamburg|Hamburg]] had suffered [[saturation bombing]] by the [[Royal Air Force]], not just [[Strategic bombing during World War II|military targets and docks]], as they had been told. He was expecting to be sent to Burma, but as his studies had been interrupted by the war, was instead granted Class B release, which meant immediate demobilisation. He returned to Cambridge, where he found that the student culture had changed from 1941, with the left-wing involvement much diminished.{{citation needed|date=February 2022}}