Adolf Hitler - My Part in His Downfall

Book Details

Library

Author

Spike Milligan

Category

Autobiography/Humor

Editor

Reference #

Contributor

Location

Translator

Status

Publisher

Penguin Books Ltd

Owner

Country

Great Britain

Personal

Language

Read it

Yes

Year Published

1971

Date Read

21/01/2006

ISBN

0140035206

Personal Rating

 6/10

LCCN

Purchase

Edition

Purchase Date

Printing

Acquired from 

Nana

Binding

Paperback

Price

$0.00

Pages

144

Value

$0.00

Overview

"At Victoria Station the RTO gave me a travel warrant, a white feather and a picture of Hitler marked 'This is your enemy'. I search every compartment, but he wasn't on the train..."

Spike Milligan's on the march, blitzing friend and foe alike with his uproarious recollection of army life from enlistment to the landing at Algiers in 1943.

Bathos, pathos, gales of drunken laughter and insane military goonery explode in superlative Milliganese.

Comment

How do you make the training of a soldier during the bloodiest war in history funny? I've no idea, but Spike Milligan obviously does. The very first line is a joke, and pretty much every one after that, too. He recounts the pranks he and his comrades pull on each other and on the officers, he remembers the punishments he received (and the fun he had earning them), and he recalls the band he played with while being shunted from one bit of the English coast to another.

This is a very easy book to read, but a hard one to put down - you want to read just the next little bit, to see what else he got up to. While I'm not sure how much of this to actually believe, it was thoroughly enjoyable, and the perfect way to relax after a stressful week. This is apparently the first in a trilogy of autobiographical books that Milligan wrote, but I haven't come across any others. This one does stand on its own, although it ends just as they arrive in Algeria, ready for combat.