From Boy Soldier to Lieutenant Colonel: The Career of Pat Soward

by Sarah Lambert

In this article, Sarah Lambert, Head of Storytelling at the Royal Signals Museum, explores the military service of Pat Soward.

Pat was involved with the Museum for many years, taking a key role in its 1995 development project, managing volunteers and producing multiple tour guides. There are some documents in the Archive pertaining to his military career, but it was only in 2022 through an oral history interview, that a fuller picture of his service years was obtained.

Aged nearly 90 at the time of the interview, Pat spoke fondly and with great powers of recall about Boys Service at Catterick in the late 1940s all the way through to his retirement as a Lieutenant Colonel in 1990. He talked of various postings all around the world, but his time as part of ‘Operation Grapple’ on Christmas Island in 1958 and his key role in the development of helicopter surveillance in the 1970s, stood out as times of particular importance to him.

“Christmas Island was probably one of the most rewarding tours that I had, because we were working all hours of the day and night especially in the build up to the atomic tests.”

The article puts a special focus on those periods as well as a general overview of Pat’s career. It is dominated by his own words which are by turns humorous, reflective and modest. Ultimately the piece highlights the impressive rise through the ranks of a man held in very high regard both within and outside of military circles.

Special thanks goes to Pat’s son Andrew Soward who kindly provided the photographs featured in the article.

Link to full article.