Quartered Safe Out Here: A Recollection of the War in Burma: Amazon.ca: George MacDonald Fraser: Books

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"There is no doubt that it is one of the great personal memoirs of the Second World War." -- John Keegan --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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"One of the great personal memoirs of the Second World War" (John Keegan) by the creator of the Flashman books.

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34 Reviews

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4.8 out of 5 stars (34 customer reviews)

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Dry humour and battlefield courage in a British platoon, Jun 22 2001

By

Kerry Marshall (Britannia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Quartered Safe Out Here: A Recollection of the War in Burma (Paperback)

The author describes his experiences of life with the dour, no-nonsense, Cumbrian ( an area of North-west England, known for its down-to-earth approach to life ) regiment, fighting close combat against the Japanese in Burma - the forgotten army in the forgotten war. This is definitely a man's book, the disparaging humour between the men being characteristic of the British army, and better than hours of contemporary "comedy".

The descriptions of the child-like yet deadly (to the Japanese) ghurkas and charismatic Field Marshal Slim are inspirational. On one occasion a small ghurka band holds a position against wave after wave of suicidal Japanese assaults; then it's discovered they don't have a single round of ammunition between them, relying rather on their weapon of choice - the "kukri" - curved machete-like knife - leaving piles of Japanese dead all around them.

There is a hilarious portrayal of a type unique to the British army - the eccentric upper-class officer, who has no fear of danger, takes the war as something of fun, and is absolutely deadly in his effectiveness towrads the enemy.

In my opinion this is a unique, precious book - to be treasured - showing war in the raw, as it really was, with real people, right up against the battlezone. These guys just got on with the job. Buy this book. You will read it with relish, and return to it when you need an uplift. Sheer pleasure.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Foxhole View of War -- One of the Best!, Jan 26 2004

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C. C. Justice (Easley, SC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Quartered Safe Out Here: A Recollection of the War in Burma (Paperback)

There are a few personal accounts of war and its impact on a man that stand out in the sea of such literature -- works such as "Goodbye to All That," "Homage to Catalonia," and "The Men I Killed." "Quartered Safe Out Here" has now joined that short list. MacDonald Fraser is the acclaimed author of the Flashman series of historical fiction, but here he reveals his own experience as an infantryman in merciless combat against the Japanese in Burma. Here is an all-too-vivid recollection of the fear, pain, discomfort and -- yes -- the pleasure of comradeship among the common soldiers who win or lose ALL wars. MacDonald Fraser reminds us that wars are not just "politics by other means," wars are about young men -- their lives, their deaths, and their friendships. As one reviewer said, MacDonald Fraser "has raised a memorial" with this book. Read it!

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars One Man's War, Sep 12 2002

By

A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Quartered Safe Out Here: A Recollection of the War in Burma (Paperback)

Before Fraser became well known for his "Flashman" series of comic historical novels, he was an enlisted man in the 17th Division of the 14th Indian Army during WWII. Almost 50 years later, he recounts his wartime experience in Burma from the perspective of his section of about eight or so men, all from Cumbria in NW England. With his many writerly gifts, he gives a mostly unvarnished account of what he did and saw, capturing battle actions and anecdotes with sharp and often witty prose.

Fraser's account is very much a personal one, and throughout the book he rails against contemporary mores and broader political correctness concerning the war. He is quite open about how the British forces believed themselves to be superior beings compared to the Japanese they fought-and points to Japanese POW camps as a vindication of this. Similarly, he reports the campfire discussions after his unit saw newsreels from liberated concentration camps, in which all agreed that Germany needed to be razed to the ground. Fraser himself provides an emphatic defense of the use of nuclear bombs on Japan. And in his defense, it is true that the latest scholarship on the subject is in agreement that Japan was not on the brink of surrender at the time.

Beyond these larger issues, the memoir is perhaps at its best when telling the smaller stories. The character of his Cumbrian comrades, the descriptions of various "native" units such as the Gurkhas, Pathans, Sikhs, and especially a hilarious description of the Army's East African drivers. There's a great bit where he falls down a well in the middle of an attack, and another great part where an uneducated Sergeant borrows his copy of Shakespeare's Henry V and definitively concludes that Shakespeare had been a soldier. My favorite bit though, was when he is sent to teach the PIAT (British version of the bazooka) to a guerilla unit led by a character straight out of Monty Python. Cpt. "Grief" was one of those crazy commando-type officers who spoke in a running "rah rah" style, thought that war was great fun, and was totally deadly.

Although at times Fraser's conservative crankiness gets old, and at times his slips into over-sentimentality, its kind of hard to begrudge him those faults-having done his service, he's earned the right to grumble. Overall, the memoir is a great taste of "the forgotten war" in Asia and an excellent example of the infantryman-level view of the war.

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Most recent customer reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Liked it
For the last ten years I have been more or less obsessed with writing a series of Second World War novels in the period before the Americans rewrote the war in their own image... Read more

Published on April 20 2010 by Jim Burk

5.0 out of 5 stars Should have six stars at least
George Macdonald Fraser has written an utterly gripping and unforgettable memoir of the war in Burma, where he served with a company of men mainly from Cumberland. Read more

Published on May 26 2004 by L O'connor