Product Description

Brought up in a rural vicarage surrounded by fells, falcons and ferrets, Freddy Spencer Chapman acquired a deep love of nature and became 'fascinated by danger' during childhood. Thirty years later, as an SOE-trained guerrilla soldier of exceptional ability and courage, the orphan boy would prove to be one of the British army's deadliest agents. In 1941 Chapman was dispatched to Singapore to train British guerrillas for the coming war with Japan. Setting out from Kuala Lumpur on 7 January 1942 on a mission to sabotage Japanese supply lines, he became a veritable one-man army. The Japanese deployed 2,000 men to search for what they believed was a squad of 200 Australian guerrillas. Following Japan's invasion of Malaya and the fall of Singapore in February 1942, Chapman found himself stranded. Under these most desperate of circumstances, the man dubbed the 'the jungle Lawrence' by Field Marshal Wavell showed his bloody-minded talent for survival. Relentlessly hunted by the Japanese army, he was afflicted by typhus, scabies, pneumonia, blackwater fever, cerebral malaria, dengue fever and ulcers before finally being rescued and evacuated to Ceylon on 13 May 1945. Chapman returned to Malaya by parachute in August to take the Japanese surrender at Penang. Jungle Soldier is a unique and remarkable account of superhuman bravery and resourcefulness in adversity.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #320 in Books
• Published on: 2009-10-15
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 352 pages

Review
'Crisp, compelling biography… Moynahan has done a terrific job of turning Chapman's life into an elegant narrative. The adventures and achievements are so remarkable that his factual biography reads at times like a Victorian novel, where the central character suffers disaster after disaster … perhaps this book will help win final recognition for a truly extraordinary man' --Sunday Times

'This story of endurance in the fetid heat of the Malayan jungle is surely one of the most awe-inspiring of the whole war … a courageous and utterly English hero, a man whose extraordinary bravery and tenacity were an inspiration to all who observed him. Only now, with the publication of this biography, will Freddy Spencer Chapman win the recognition his memory deserves' --Daily Mail

'Captures the amazing wartime exploits of Freddy Spencer Chapman' Daily Express. 'An extraordinary life ... For over three years in the Second World War, he blew up trains, bridges and enemy soldiers in the jungles of Malaya all the while studying birdlife and collecting seeds to send back to Kew Gardens ... Quite why Chapman hasn't found Lawrence of Arabia's fame is anyone's guess.' Guardian. 'Brian Moynahan's gripping book gives a fascinating insight into Chapman's upbringing' Daily Telegraph. 'Fantastic new book ... a truly amazing story' Weekly News. --Reviews.

From the Inside Flap
Freddy Spencer Chapman - Arctic explorer, Himalayan climber and naturalist turned master of irregular warfare - was posted as `missing believed killed' after the Japanese overran Malaya and Singapore in 1942. Two years later, two SOE officers were landed in Malaya by submarine. To their astonishment, they discovered that he was still alive, and the most hunted man in Japanese-occupied Asia.
Brought up as an orphan in Lakeland vicarages, lover of the English countryside, he became `fascinated by danger' during solitary rambles across the fells. Thirty years later, the `most unwashed and independent' little boy with pockets full of birds' eggs and caterpillars had metamorphosed into one of the British army's deadliest guerrillas. He set out from Kuala Lumpur in January 1942 - in style, in a scarlet Ford V8, with the dickey seat crammed with explosives - on a mission to sabotage Japanese supply lines. He and two associates blew up 8 trains, destroyed 40 vehicles, and killed more than 500 enemy soldiers during one 14-day period. The Japanese deployed a regiment to search for what they believed was a squad of 200 Australian commandos.
The fall of Singapore to the Japanese in February 1942 left Chapman stranded and in terrible danger. Under these most desperate of circumstances, the man who Field Marshal Wavell thought of as `the jungle Lawrence' showed his bloody-minded talent for survival. Chapman held out for 1,226 days behind enemy lines, cut off from supplies, shelter or contact with British forces. Relentlessly hunted by the Japanese army - and once captured by them for a few hours - he was afflicted by typhus, scabies, pneumonia, blackwater fever, cerebral malaria, dengue fever and ulcers before finally getting out on a submarine to Ceylon in May 1945.
Drawing on extensive field research, and in particular on Chapman's detailed diary of his jungle ordeal, Brian Moynahan recreates thrillingly and unforgettably the life and adventures of a very English hero. He links him to the great explorer-naturalists of the past - even half-dead, Spencer Chapman still collected seeds for Kew and made field notes on birds - and shows how this proud British tradition gave him strength. Part biography, part tale of endurance, part special-forces narrative, Jungle Soldier will appeal to anyone who enjoys true stories of combat, courage and resourcefulness in adversity.

From the Back Cover
The amazing true story of how Freddy Spencer Chapman fought and survived one thousand days behind Japanese lines in Malaya in World War II to become a legend of guerrilla warfare.

Customer Reviews

An ordeal almost beyond belief
This is a wonderful, compelling account of a truly remarkable man. Freddy Spencer Chapman defied the Japanese in the jungle for three and a half years after they swept through Malaya in January 1942. His companions were killed, taken prisoner or beheaded, but he never surrendered. Jungle Soldier uses Chapman's diaries, and the account he wrote just after the war, to show us his terrifying ordeal. By recounting his life from earliest childhood, it also shows us why he survived. We see him as a schoolboy, armouring himself as an orphan with toughness and love of the wild, and as a young explorer, learning endurance and the arts of survival in Greenland and Tibet ... We get a vivid picture of the half-forgotten man his contemporaries called `the jungle Lawrence.'

A look at the life of a remarkable man
Since this is a book on Chapman, while The Jungle is Neutral (published in 1948 not 1996) is about the war years only, Jungle Soldier: The True Story of Freddy Spencer Chapman is intended to be a more rounded look at Chapman's whole life.

Jungle Journeys
Freddy Spencer Chapman is one of those characters who for some reason has slipped below the radar; perhaps that's a consequence of where he carried out his acts of derring-do, because the Malaya Campaign wasn't exactly an unqualified success, and we'd rather forget our defeats. His exploits should be far more widely known than they are, if only to make us consider what is possible, and what character traits give a person such fortitude and resolve. Was he interesting? Certainly. Was he likeable? Not always, not entirely.

This book sets out to bring him back him back into the public gaze, and in some ways it is more readable than 'The Jungle is Neutral', Spencer Chapman's own account of his adventures in the Malayan jungles between 1942 and 1945. It also has the advantage of including the story of his life up until he came to Singapore, and of following it through until his death. It's quite a gripping read, and is especially interesting where it compares The Jungle is Neutral to Spencer Chapman's own surviving diaries. The author also tries to show how the child became the man, coming up with the interesting and plausible idea that the rootlessness of Spencer Chapman's early life was what enabled him to survive the rootlessness of his time with the Chinese guerrillas in the jungle. That, and his own ethic of physical endurance.

It's more than a Boys Own adventure: we see Freddy in the jungle making notes on the bird species he saw and collecting seeds to take back to Kew. If you want an introduction to the life of a remarkable and many-faceted man, this is a very good place to start.