|
|
 |
| |
Stories from the frontline
AS with all great war books, Richard Hillary’s The Last Enemy, has a distinctive flavour all of its own. In that sense it resembles such classics of World War One as All Quiet on the West Front (German) and Under Fire (French).
And, like those, it will be read and re-read for decades to come.
Written by Hillary about his life as a Spitfire pilot in his early 20s, this slim volume has the kind of pace and vitality your memory will not want to let go of. Although Hillary sketches his exploits in the air and the months spent in hospital, undergoing painful plastic surgery, he does so with no sense of self-pity. He lived long enough to see it published in 1942, seven months before his death in a second crash.
Another book, The Mirror of Monte Cavallara, could have been written in the war but the author Ray Ward saved up his memories until shortly before his death 60 years later. Hidden in a cellar, they were discovered accidentally by his son in 1999, and reveal a true soldier’s life in the Desert Campaign and the front in Italy.
Again, there’s a reality about the memoir, introduced with the words “Ne obliviscaris” – Do not forget.
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
