Book of Military Obituaries

by David Twiston Davies (Editor)

In the 17 years since The Daily Telegraph started to take its obituaries seriously by allotting them a special section in the paper, it has published around 1,000 obituaries of soldiers, as well as almost equal numbers of sailors and airmen. The 100 to be found here, which have never before been collected in book form, were chosen to show the widest range of military experience.

They include those who performed astonishing acts of bravery, such as the New Zealander Charles Upham, who won the Victoria Cross twice in North Africa, the commando leader "Mad Jack" Churchill and Drum Major Buss, the bugler who rallied the Glosters and the Imjin river in Korea. Among the senior figures are General Mazek, who commanded the Polish 2nd Corps in Normandy, the rigorous Field Marshal Lord Carver and General Sir Walter Walker, who won three DSOs and remained an unflinchingly outspoken critic of Britain's postwar society.

But not every soldier is called upon to concentrate on fighting. Kenneth Merrylees spent his career searching for water on behalf of the Army. James Drew was General Montgomery's postmaster. Among those who enjoyed the high noon of British India are Tony 'Raj' Fowler, who was engaged in operations against the Fakir of Ipi on the border of Afghanistan, and that great character Sir 'Honker' Henniker, Bt, who remembered being smartly saluted by elephants.

David Twiston Davies, is the Chief Obituary Writer of The Daily Telegraph.

512 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Robert Bagnall · Rating 3 out of 5]

A three star review for a four star execution of a two star idea, most of the best obits having been used in earlier editions, and the bottom of the barrel being well and truly scraped. As before, there’s an excess of pig-sticking, and I can’t help thinking a lot of officers got gongs for the bravery of their men.

That said, Vivian Bullwinkle’s, machine-gunned and left for dead, the only survivor of a Japanese atrocity, was particularly moving; Chef Caporal James Worden’s ability to jump from a plane with a full bottle of beer and have it drunk by the time he landed (not his only talent) the most impressive; and as for the officer who “retired early to join WH Smith, where he first took charge of shop fittings, and eventually became managing director”, I think that’s hiding a pitch for a sitcom.

[Nicholas Whyte]

http://nhw.livejournal.com/51138.html[return][return]A collection of 100 obituaries of soldiers, sailors and airmen, published between 1987 and 2002. They are printed in order of publication, which is understandable but also a little confusing - it would actually have made a more interesting read to put them in chronological order of birth, to tell the story of the wars of the last century in sequence. (I am intrigued by the occasional mentions of the Waziristan campaign, for instance, but never found out when or why it was fought.) As it is, the last two entries in the book were born in 1920 (claim to fame: parachuting mules behind enemy lines in Burma in 1944) and 1896 (claim to fame: taking command of his company in 1915 after all the officers were killed).[return][return]There are some very interesting stories here: Colonel Merrylees and his successful dowsing for water; Major Pringle, who escaped six times from POW camps; Sir Walter Walker, who attempted to organise against civil disorder in the 1970s. There are also a couple of authors whose books I have at least leafed through, General Sir John Hackett and Lord Carver. But the overall impression I was left with was quite a different one: how easy it is for one's whole life to be defined (and afterwards remembered) by a crucial period of a day, an hour, or even five minutes in which you are put to the test.