Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #244407 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-30
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 416 pages

The Spectator, November 2006
"Splendidly readable...Some of the tales here are so extraordinary they
beggar belief"

Synopsis
Following on from the great success of the first volume, the paperback of which is still in print, the "Daily Telegraph's" chief obituary writer has assembled another one hundred pithy insights into a plethora of fascinating lives, all published in the newspaper since 2000. This second collection bears eloquent testimony to the gallant qualities shown by our soldiers. It includes such Victoria Cross holders as the Gurkha Ganju Lama and the tank commander Pip Gardener; Major-General "Bala" Bredin, who refused to wear a helmet yet won three DSOs and two MCs; and the Brigadier David Block, the deadly accurate gunner at Monte Cassino. But although most of the actions described occurred in the Second World War, Warrant Officer "Muscles" Strong proved a tower of strength to the 1917 cavalry charge at Huj in the Sinai Desert; and the doctor Major Vanessa Lloyd-Davies dismissed the danger of being under fire in Bosnia in 1993 by saying she had faced worse when riding hard with the Quorn Hunt in Leicestershire.

Customer Reviews

Another book which is hard to put down.
If there is but one single disadvantage to getting older, it is that we begin to recognise, from within our own circle of people and experiences, more and more of those whose names appear under the heading "Obituaries." This second book of Military Obituaries, from David Twiston Davies, contains one of my former commanding officers and a former colleague who was 10 years my junior. Not that I'm getting old - certainly not, but it does add a personal connection.

In an excellent compilation, we are treated to an abbreviated celebration of the lives of another 100 former soldiers who were not all generals or holders of the VC. Signalman Laurence Cotterell, for example, went on to become a notable poet and Rifleman Alex Bowlby wrote an outstanding book which was hailed as "one of the best accounts of a front-line infantryman in the Second World War." Elsewhere, there are, as there should be, accounts of the lives and the deeds of the good and the great including the redoubtable General Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley and my old CO Johnny Watts...

What I like most about the book is the eclectic mix with every single army rank being represented. From 100 obituaries, six were holders of the VC, twenty held the rank of Brigadier to Field Marshal and a further 15 were non-commissioned. If I could improve the book, however, it would be to add the relevant page number against the list of names of those who are included.

The saddest part was in learning of the death of Vanessa Lloyd-Davies two years ago. We were colleagues in the former Yugoslavia in 1992 and there are many unanswered questions from that particular tour of duty and the way in which it was commanded!

David Twis' has produced another sobering, yet entertaining, book about the lives of 100 people who played a part in history. Sobering, because of what each person did and achieved. Entertaining, because we are not reading about their deaths - but about their lives. Quite often you find yourself thinking "Wow!" as you read of some of the exploits of those now departed.

Altogether, it really is a hard book to put down.

NM