From 1945 for over sixty years Scots Guards Battalions served regularly in Germany as part of the British Army of the Rhine, helping to contain the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War until the Iron Curtain came down in 1989 and thereafter in garrisons. They also served in most parts of the world where British troops were stationed and took part in military operations in Malaya in the late 1940s and in Borneo in the 1960s. From 1970 there were a succession of tours of service in Northern Ireland, mounted either from Germany or the UK, all of them unpleasant and very demanding and almost all involving casualties, sometimes severe.
In April 1982 Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands and the 2nd Battalion was in the relief expedition. Their direct involvement in the fighting came near the end when they attacked and took Mount Tumbledown in a difficult and prolonged night battle along an awkward, rock strewn ridge. The Battle Honour on the Colours is “FALKLAND ISLANDS 1982”. The 1st Battalion served in the Gulf War, earning the Battle Honour “GULF 1991”. Because of defence cuts the 2nd Battalion was removed from the Army Order of Battle in 1993, but its traditions and Colours are maintained by F Company Scots Guards, stationed in London and carrying out public duties. Subsequent to the start of the Iraq War in 2003 the 1st Battalion carried out very intense tours in Iraq and, since British attention shifted away from there, in Afghanistan.
