Excellent war biography

[Retsdon]

I've always been a big fan of George McDonald Fraser's Flashman series, but I've only just now stumbled across the autobiographical account of his WW2 experiences. It's a book called 'Quartered Safe Out Here'  - 'here' in his case being the sharp end of Slim's 14 Army in Burma. He was a private in a Cumbrian regiment and the book is simply a  daily account of the experiences of a soldier and his section on one of the nastiest battle fronts of the whole war.

These days there seems to be so much revisionist history about, and such projection of modern attitudes and viewpoints onto historical events that it's really refreshing to read a well-written original account. Like J C Dunn , who penned the classic WW1 diary 'The War the Infantry Knew', GMF isn't one for this weepy hand-wringing about warfare that has become the modern style. Neither were, quite obviously, his Cumbrian infantrymen mates who fought alongside him. And because of that, the book is doubly interesting because not only is it a wonderful account of the experiences he went through, it also shines a light on attitudes and ways of thinking that have been basically airbrushed out modern narratives about that period and out of modern British thinking altogether. Yet at the time - that's how people thought and behaved.

Anyway, the book is excellent and I highly recommend it.

[Scully]

Will seek out a copy; I read Them War the Infantry Knew’ many moons ago. A bit of a tome, but well worth the time. 
Thanks for the heads up. 

[Retsdon]

5 hours ago, Scully said:

Will seek out a copy; I read Them War the Infantry Knew’ many moons ago. A bit of a tome, but well worth the time. 
Thanks for the heads up. 

Actually,  I was thinking of yourself when I posted the thread. He's not writing about any old soldiers, it's very much Cumbrian soldiers. And the tone is far different to Dunn. GMF wrote the Flashman series and his genius as a comic writer pops up regularly in this book too. It's  often laugh-out-loud stuff.

[Scully]

Sounds good. Cheers. 👍

[Westward]

Brilliant book, read it a couple of years ago. Beautifully written and an absolutely captivating account of driving the Japanese army out of Burma.

[Pistol p]

This book came up recently on al Murray and James Holland’s podcast ‘we have ways of making you talk’. They took a reading from 12 books over Xmas and highly recommend this one. I think I’ll have a crack at some of spike milligans wartime accounts as well.

[Retsdon]

2 minutes ago, Pistol p said:

I think I’ll have a crack at some of spike milligans wartime accounts as well.

They're excellent!

[Bobba]

Although not a biography as such, another cracking read is "SAS Rogue Heroes" by Ben MacIntyre which recounts the beginings of the SAS in WW2

17 hours ago, Pistol p said:

I think I’ll have a crack at some of spike milligans wartime accounts as well.

My favourite is "Adolph Hitler, my part in his downfall"

[Thunderbird]

This book has been on my list for a while, must search out a copy. 

Loved the Flashman series, gloriously un-PC! 

EDIT: James Delingpole has had a go at a kind of modern Flashman-esque version, to mixed reviews. The 'hero's' name is Coward I think. 

Edited February 20, 2020 by Thunderbird

[Townie]

Just finished Fighting through to Kohima by Michael Lowry, a memoir about the same theatre. 
 

I was struck by precisely the same thought when he described he and his men having great fun shooting at fleeing Japanese. Different world!