Cassell Military Paperbacks
2 total works
The first of John Master's evocative memoirs about life in the Gurkhas in India on the cusp of WWII
John Masters was a soldier before he became a bestselling novelist. He went to Sandhurst in 1933 at the age of eighteen and was commissioned into the 4th Gurkha Rifles in time to take part in some of the last campaigns on the turbulent north-west frontier of India.
John Masters joined a Gurhka regiment on receiving his commission, and his depiction of garrison life and campaigning on the North-West Frontier has never been surpassed. BUGLES AND A TIGER is a matchless evocation of the British Army in India on the eve of the Second World War. Still very much the army depicted by Kipling, it stands on the threshold of a war that will transform the world. This book is the first of three volumes of autobiography that touched a chord in the post-war world.
The second part of the bestselling novelist's autobiography about his time in the Gurkhas during the second world war
This is the second part of John Masters' autobiography: how he fought with his Gurkha regiment during World War II until his promotion to command one of the Chindit columns behind enemy lines in Burma. Written by a bestselling novelist at the height of his powers, it is an exceptionally moving story that culminates in him having to personally shoot a number of wounded British soldiers who cannot be evacuated before their position is overrun by the Japanese. It is an uncomfortable reminder that Churchill's obsession with 'special forces' squandered thousands of Allied lives in operations that owed more to public relations than strategic calculation. This military and moral odyssey is one of the greatest of World War II frontline memoirs.