Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #59998 in Books
• Published on: 2004-09-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 240 pages

Synopsis
The Second World War produced a unique band of heroes: a small international group of men that were uniquely celebrated and lauded for their remarkable courage. The group was the so-called Guinea Pig Club, the band of airmen who crawled from burning aircraft but suffered the worst imaginable burns and crash injuries. The 647 survivors included British, Canadian, Czech and Polish airmen. Before the war, no one had anticipated airmen would survive mid-air fires. Consequently, provision for their care was virtually non-existant. Their rehabilitation was placed in the hands of one plastic surgeon named Archibald McIndoe at a hospital in East Grinsted, in the south of England. McIndoe quickly constructed a medical infrastructure from scratch. After arguing with his superiors, he set up a revolutionary new treatment regime. Uniquely concerned with the social environment, or 'holistic care', McIndoe also enlisted the help of the local civilian population. He rightly secured his patients a place in society as Allied war heroes. The Canadian government was so impressed with his work that it funded a Canadian Wing at the hospital.

For the first time official records have been used to fully explain how the patients were injured, treated, then paraded as heroes. Using gripping first-hand accounts, Emily Mayhew paints a genuinely-moving picture illustrating incredible courage and triumph.

Customer Reviews

Storytelling and Scholarship
It is often said that war brings out the best and the worst in people. It also brings out the best and the worst in historians. This is some of the best of both.

From the beginning of air warfare, an airman's greatest fear was fire. Burns are among the most painful of injuries and they also produce terrible disfigurement. This is the story of how Britain led the way in treating these injuries in WWII. It is about innovation in medicine and the treatment of patients, and about the people who did it and their patients.

The central theme is the remarkable figure of Sir Archibald McIndoe, his burns unit at East Grinstead and his patients, who formed the Guinea Pig Club. Through original research, Emily Mayhew adjusts the familiar tale. While the image of the Guinea Pigs is dominated in the public mind by fighter pilots, most famously Richard Hillary, we learn here about the far more numerous bomber crews. She also tells the story of David Charters who did work similar to McIndoe in the primitive conditions of a POW camp in Germany. We learn about how the town of East Grinstead itself played a key role in repairing not just the faces but the minds of the disfigured airmen, and how the RAF supported them and McIndoe, even when he bent the rules. The unit was one of the first to practice wholistic medicine, to treat its subjects not as patients but as people. It is a human tale.

Mayhew manages to combine scholarship with a compelling narrative and brings together the big picture and the personal stories of many of the individuals involved as doctors and nurses and their patients.

Always authoritative, the book is also an easy and gratifying read. It is a marvellous story. This is a highly informative and touching piece of work which deserves wide readership. Highly recommended.

a superb book
A very well-written book about a story that needs to be told more often and given the widest audience. I have to admit that my eyes often filled with tears whilst reading the book, in pity and admiration at the wounded airmen's courage.
The author sets the scene well, explaining that the new high-octane aviation fuel meant that RAF aircrew in wartime would be facing what was virtually a new type of wound - terrible disfiguring burns that could 'erase' faces. And of how McIndoe had to develop new techniques - and discard old ones - to try to give back to his 'Guinea Pigs' some hope of a normal life. He also realised that surgery was only part of the treatment - the men's morale was vital too, so his approach was 'holistic', and included attractive nurses - who were chosen for their competence and ability to cope emotionally - and a barrel of beer in the ward to ensure the patients took enough liquids!
But above all, he enlisted the entire population of East Grinstead (and as the book makes clear, later the entire country too) as a support network, to help the recovering patients' re-entry to life and society. The men were not hidden away as dangers to morale, but rather celebrated as heroes and their contribution valued.
Both the 'Guinea Pigs' and McIndoe are well-served by this book, and you won't regret buying it.