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Quartered Safe Out Here: A Harrowing Tale of World War II
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
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George MacDonald Fraser—beloved for his series of Flashman historical novels—offers an action-packed memoir of his experiences in Burma during World War II. Fraser was only 19 when he arrived there in the war's final year, and he offers a first-hand glimpse at the camaraderie, danger, and satisfactions of service. A substantial Epilogue, occasioned by the 50th anniversary of VJ-Day in 1995, adds poignancy to a volume that eminent military historian John Keegan described as "one of the great personal memoirs of the Second World War."
Author
George MacDonald Fraser
The author of the famous ‘Flashman Papers’ and the ‘Private McAuslan’ stories, George MacDonald Fraser has worked on newspapers in Britain and Canada. In addition to his novels he has also written numeous films, most notably ‘The Three Musketeers’, ‘The Four Musketeers’, and the James Bond film, ‘Octopussy’. George Macdonald Fraser died in January 2008 at the age of 82.
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Reviews for Quartered Safe Out Here
Rating: 4.30596993358209 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
134 ratings17 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5George MacDonald Fraser's flawed, but interesting and entertaining recollection of his service in Burma during the latter stages of WW II are well worth reading on their own merit and especially so for his legion of Flashman: A Novel readers. Some slice of that readership will be particularly interested to see whether the memoir reveals just how much Flashman reflected the real thinking of the author. Fraser expressed his disdain for such modern "PC" readers in a piece excerpted in The Daily Mail around the time of his death in 2008 from another memoir he wrote about his experiences as a movie screenwriter called The Light's on at Signpost. Ouch.Fraser's recollections come with a few drawbacks worth noting. For some reason, Fraser felt compelled to explain why he was writing this book. One would think that a book about a famous author's service in Burma would not really require such explanation. I suppose what he really meant was "why was he writing it after all those years?" - the personal history was not published until 1992 and had been written recently from memory and not based on any contemporaneous notes or early draft.Fraser explains that firstly he is recording what may be the "last great battle in the last great war". Such an utterance of sodden nonsense is disappointing coming from the author of the Flashman books - that, if anything, establish humanity's ready willingness to blow one another's brains out (See e.g. Flashman and the Redskins). He fears that the battle has been forgotten, but gives a hint of his real motive when he laments the changed "attitudes to war". Fraser also notes that he is offering a soldier's view of the Burma campaign rather than the already well-told officer's view.Fraser slips off the rails, however, when he further justifies his book by an attack on Paul Fussell's Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War - or rather a review of that book. As becomes clear in reading Fraser's war memoir, he and Fussell experienced war - or recall their war experiences - in profoundly different ways (Fussell wrote Wartime in 1989.). Fussell was severely psychologically damaged by his war experiences (as well as physically wounded). Fussell set out to knock down many of the myths of WW II, the so-called Good War, and Fraser is outraged by such attitudes (not outraged enough to have actually read the book, however). Fraser is intent on preserving as many of the myths as possible (which he denies are myths). More unsettling is Fraser's adamant unwillingness to accept that other soldiers experienced the war in starkly different terms (He flatly states Fussell presents "a view which is false".).Fraser's tale focuses on his 8-man 'section' (equivalent to a US squad) of his platoon. He does not use the soldiers' actual names for reasons that are not entirely convincing. Like Flashman, Fraser was working from memory, but unlike Flashy, Fraser does not have an omniscient editor adding historical footnotes and correcting his lapses of memory. Not using real names does not add to the reader's confidence.One final bit of carping: Fraser was clearly offended that views of war had changed, even among soldiers, and just will not let it drop. He cites modern soldiers' confessing fear in battle to the "disgusting inquisition of war reporters". In his day, that "was simply not done." Perhaps so, at least in his own section, but Fraser should heed his own counsel. He has earlier warned against trying to view WW II experiences through the outlook of today; he should have inferred the corollary that viewing current actions through the outlook of 70 years ago is just as likely to lead to misunderstanding and incomprehension.Nonetheless, as a devoted fan of the Flashman books, I think other devotees will also enjoy the book. Fraser's trademark dexterous use of the language employed by his Cumberland 'marras' (mates) brings the characters vividly to life. He introduces the reader to topics little known but of historical importance (aside from the Burma campaign itself there is the battle of Imphal and Kohima that stopped the 1944 Japanese invasion of India). The writing is crisp and a joy to read. In addition to Fussell's Wartime, I would also suggest that the reader try E.B. Sledge's memoir With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa. Readers may also enjoy Fraser's lesser known works of historical fiction based on his later WW II experiences in the Middle East, The Complete McAuslan: All the Hilarious McAuslan Stories in One Volume.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I really liked this memoir because it talked about one of the campaigns of World War II that Americans just don't hear as much about. In addition, Fraser discussed his role in the fighting in a way that was both clear and realistic. He admits that many of the details are hazy at best after this many years, but the things he remembers are related in a way that brings the other men in his Section to memorable life. Fraser does not shy away from the more grisly aspects of his service, nor does he dwell on them unnecessarily.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A war memoir of campaigning in Burma during World War 2. This is not from the officers and strategists, but from a bloke on the pointy end of things. There may well be an important battle with objectives and military tactics going on here, but your bit is to stay put here in this ratty half demolished house on the edge of the jungle, and shoot any random Japs that come along, making sure you don't mistake them for Ghurkas or your friends, and then march over there for 18 hours in your soggy boots.Fraser writes well, and his characters are believable partly because they are so outlandish. They could have come straight from the pages of Spike Milligan. Country lads with heavy accents and down to earth manners, they live to trade herring for smokes, steal tea and sugar, and eat tinned fruit and nestles milk. Officers with bizarre affectations are taken in stride. It's mundane and funny, and then suddenly explosively violent and tragic, and then back to the mundane again.At times Fraser can be rather belligerently the conservative grumpy old man, but the overall humour and compassion make this thoroughly worthwhile.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wonderfully vivid and (as one would expect of Fraser) at times marvellously funny account of his experiences as asoldier in a Burma near the end of World War II. It is very honest about the ugly aspects of the war, but (unlike some of his fiction) it comes across as ultimately uncynical, with a real respect for the soldiers he served with and their leader Lord Slim.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Absolutely outstanding. One of the best memoirs of life for an infantry soldier in war I have ever read. Also a tribute to the magnificent XIV Army and its grand leader Slim. Fraser writes good books and this is as good as any.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5George MacDonald Fraser is perhaps better known for his humour, in the Flashman series. This book certainly contains humour, as it details the boredom and farce of the everyday life of a soldier. In some ways it is thus similar to Spike Milligan's books on the war. But, unlike Milligan, Fraser saw real active service in the front line in Burma, and he recounts the horrors of war at first hand.One theme that comes through strongly is that we cannot judge the actions of young national servicemen in 1945 according to the standards of the 21st century. It was kill or be killed, fighting a particularly fierce and ruthless enemy. Fraser killed, and saw his friends being killed.Like many others who study what soldiers fight for, Fraser says it is basically for your mates - in his case the 10-man infantry rifle section.He reflects on the problems of being an eye-witness. In a battle you see only a very small part of the action (or sometimes no action). If you are in action, you are totally focused on a very narrow front, on the people who are trying to kill you personally and you them. You are oblivious to all else. Thus, despite extensive research in the official records, he still finds it difficult to match some of his personal recollections with the official history.Fraser spends some time discussing the dropping of the atomic bombs, which probably saved the lives of either himself or some of his immediate friends, at great cost.To the modern reader he comes over as quite conservative, reactionary, right wing. And yet he is no armchair ideologue. His views have been formed by bitter experience, and he is prepared to justify them, while also remaining surprisingly open to people who disagree with him.This is an excellent read, not only for its exciting account of guerilla warfare, but also for its insights into various broad themes.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I don't know why George MacDonald Fraser waited until 2007 to publish his memoir of his experiences as a young British soldier in Burma toward the end of World War II, "Quartered Safe Out Here." He was probably much too busy writing his Flashman novels and other books. But if the passage of more than half a century made his memory a bit foggy about some of the details, it did give him the advantage of perspective, and many of the best passages in the book were made possible by the perspective of an old man in the 21st century looking back at what it was like being a soldier in the 1940s.There is, for example, his commentary on what British soldiers were fighting for and what they weren't fighting for: "They did not fight for a Britain that would be dishonestly railroaded into Europe against the people's will; they did not fight for a Britain where successive governments, by their weakness and folly, would encourage crime and violence on an unprecedented scale ..."No, that is not what they fought for - but being realists they accept what they cannot alter, and reserve their protests for the noise pollution of modern music in their pubs."Later he writes about the morality of dropping A-bombs on two Japanese cities to end the war, a question, he says, that never occurred to soldiers in the field. He considers the possibility that he could have been one of the many Allied soldiers who would certainly have been killed if those bombs hadn't been dropped and the fact that, in that case, his children and grandchildren would never have been born. "And that," he writes, "I'm afraid, is where all discussion of pros and cons evaporates and becomes meaningless, because for those nine lives I would pull the plug on the whole Japanese nation and never even blink. And so, I dare suggest, would you. And if you wouldn't you may be nearer to the divine than I am but you sure as hell aren't fit to be parents or grandparents."In truth, Fraser really didn't see that much action in the war. The major battles happened elsewhere. Yet his memoir, due to his writing skill and a lifetime of thinking about those events, make it excellent reading.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5GMF is an entertainer, and these are a lively set of war memoirs. The final year of the XIV Army campaign in Burma is our larger framework, and I got the clear and informative story that I was looking for. Well worth the read, and remember that these were the author's salad days, whose loss he regrets.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Quartered Safe Out Here is George MacDonald Fraser's "memoir" about being in Burma as a 19 year old soldier in World War II. While it's a vivid and honest first hand account about being in the thick of battle, I found it slow moving and tiring. Fraser takes great pains to get every accent phonetically spelled out - so much so that the written page looks like a foreign language at times. But, it wasn't the accents that I found the most tiresome. It was the fact that nearly every every other page contained a footnote containing a special explanation or definition. Fraser could have added another 50 pages if the footnotes were included in the body of the text. Probably the scene that held my attention the best was when Fraser was looking in bunkers for 'Japs.' His innocence to the danger is touching.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5One of the very best world war II memoirs, bu the author of the Flashman novels.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This World War II memoir, published long afterwards in 1992, is most interesting for the English accents and mannerisms from the north border region (Cumberland), in particular the back and forth banter among the working class front line soldiers, often very funny. And that's about it really, the war scenes in Burma are interesting but not particularly dramatic. It seems honest though, he tries hard to present the 1940s as they existed (for him). The audiobook version helped with the accents, though I often had trouble understanding what was being said.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is one of the few biographys of WWII that has had me laughing out loud - the carrot incident was all too credible, and the incident at the well just so unexpected. GMFs turn of phrase and timing makes these naturally funny incidents hilarious. I especially appreciated the detailed descriptions of the details of daily life for a rifleman in the 1940s - too often those nuts and bolts details get glossed over, and without them it becomes increasingly difficult to really visualise the trials and tribulations of the frontline. GMF is undoubtedly an iconoclast - his opinions are very strongly his own, from the worth of a Thompson vs a SMLE, or the atomic bombs, to the claggage a modern rifleman must lug about the place. While you may not agree with his opinions, they cannot be dismissed out of hand. I don't agree with, for example, his opinion on all the crud a rifleman has to carry now, but I really had to examine my own thoughts and reasons before I felt comfortable with that. Overall this is an outstanding biography of the rifleman's lot. I strongly recommend it in conjunction with "The Recollections of Rifleman Bowlby" and "And no Birds Sang".
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This book immediately grabbed my attention by introducing itself, quite lucidly, with a discussion of personal memory and its notoriously complex relationship with facts. Long ago, I had been schooled on the difference of recalling a "normal" event and that of reliving a "significant emotional experience" and how much more vivid, though not necessarily more broadly encompassing it may be. The author sets the stage candidly for where he is coming from and then launches into a memoir of his experience in the armed forces fighting the Japanese in Burma during World War II. While the setting is clearly different, I found myself frequently thinking of my experiencing Robert Lewis Stevenson's Treasure Island, so many decades ago. This was a real adventure, and it brought back the feeling I had so very long ago reading my first fictional adventure. The author's style brings the reader right along with him through each setting. The reader becomes part embedded reporter and part individual hearing someone tell a story in a relaxed gathering of friends. The story shifts gear often with healthy doses of humor and suspense, never flagging in its ability to maintain interest. An extra bonus comes with the author relating his war experiences to veterans of the first Iraq War which had occurred just before he wrote the book. It was rather remarkable how much of what he had to say applied every bit as well today. I certainly can see people reading this book or not based purely on it being a book about war, but I think those that bypass it will miss the insight that relates so keenly to how humans have everyday life experiences.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5One of the best, most honest memoirs of World War II.Fraser has an interesting, soldier's view on the dropping of the atomic bombs.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5George MacDonald Fraser is perhaps better known for his humour, in the Flashman series. This book certainly contains humour, as it details the boredom and farce of the everyday life of a soldier. In some ways it is thus similar to Spike Milligan's books on the war. But, unlike Milligan, Fraser saw real active service in the front line in Burma, and he recounts the horrors of war at first hand.One theme that comes through strongly is that we cannot judge the actions of young national servicemen in 1945 according to the standards of the 21st century. It was kill or be killed, fighting a particularly fierce and ruthless enemy. Fraser killed, and saw his friends being killed.Like many others who study what soldiers fight for, Fraser says it is basically for your mates - in his case the 10-man infantry rifle section.He reflects on the problems of being an eye-witness. In a battle you see only a very small part of the action (or sometimes no action). If you are in action, you are totally focused on a very narrow front, on the people who are trying to kill you personally and you them. You are oblivious to all else. Thus, despite extensive research in the official records, he still finds it difficult to match some of his personal recollections with the official history.Fraser spends some time discussing the dropping of the atomic bombs, which probably saved the lives of either himself or some of his immediate friends, at great cost.To the modern reader he comes over as quite conservative, reactionary, right wing. And yet he is no armchair ideologue. His views have been formed by bitter experience, and he is prepared to justify them, while also remaining surprisingly open to people who disagree with him.This is an excellent read, not only for its exciting account of guerilla warfare, but also for its insights into various broad themes.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Superb descriptive writing & honest. I don’t agree with all of MacDonald’s opinions, but he explains himself. He’s thoughtful.
I’ve never laughed out loud this much reading a war memoir. The combat scenes are terrifying. The camaraderie of the soldiers is wonderful as well as the quirks of the soldiers and certain officers. I suspect MacDonald has caught some grief about some of the descriptions, but I say “bash on MacDonald, I suspect your descriptions are spot on.”
Despite the glossary, I had to look up some of the English slang. I felt like a berk at times.
Where did the nickname “Grandarse” come from? - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Simply the best "I was there" book I've ever read about WWII.
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Quartered Safe Out Here - George MacDonald Fraser
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