My childhood impressions of World War 2 were shaped by the comics and films of the day. Boy’s Own type adventures of bravery and fighting heroically against the odds, on land, at sea or in the sky. Frank Murphy punctures that sort of mythologising of war in this memoir- first published in the USA in 2001 and just republished in the UK- with this stark and honest quotation.
‘We were all cowards. If you weren’t a coward, you weren’t human.’
Frank Murphy’s military service was dramatic. He was a navigator on B-17s flying perilous bombing raids into Europe from Thorpe Abbott’s in Norfolk in 1943, in a campaign which was immensely costly in human lives lost, and after being shot down over Munster was sent to the infamous Stalag Luft 111, just a few months before the so-called ‘Great Escape’. But the power of this book lies in Murphy’s account of his own experiences and his celebration of those who fought alongside him.
You get a sense of the characters and quirks of the men who accompanied him on daylight missions, cramped together in a vulnerable shell thousands of feet in the air, flying through rages of flak, and hoping not to be shot from the sky by enemy fighters.
For those fascinated by military tactics or technology, there is much to enjoy also. There are potted histories of the art of navigation and the development of warplanes and a skim through 20th American history- Murphy’s family were greatly affected by the Great Depression. And his recollection of the mood between the German invasion of Poland, in 1939, and the attack on Pearl Harbor, in 1941, has strong contemporary resonance for people on both sides of the Atlantic.
‘… even though it was prominently covered in newspapers, radio news broadcasts, and theatre newsreels,’ it, ‘had no immediate impact on our lives. It was happening far away…’
This memoir does succeed in showing what it was like when that far-away war became a daily reality for men, barely out of their teens.
- Luck of the Draw by Frank Murphy is published by Elliott & Thompson (£25.00). To order a copy go to eandtbooks.com
Ian Tattum
Ian Tattum is a priest in the Church of England who writes occasional pieces about the people who shaped the history of science and human and animal travel-real and fictional.
