Adolf Hitler: My Part in his Downfall (Spike Milligan War Memoirs)

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Tanks, but No Tanks: One of Milligan's friends mistakes Panzer IIIs for the much larger Mark VI Tiger tanks at one point. At one point, a group of signallers, including Edgington, is caught in an air strike while brewing up. Most of them run for the cover of their three-tonner, but Edgington collects the kettle and mugs first. He also takes his tin hat off and uses it to cover the tea urn.

All Jews Are Cheapskates: Milligan has a tendency to mine this and other hoary stereotypes for laughs: for example, Gunner Shapiro and Lt. Mostyn in Rommel and Sgt. Lewis in Bullets are all presented as being very money-conscious, although in other respects they're sympathetic characters, especially Lewis, who Spike forms a friendship with. Wall Bang Her: Known here as "knee-trembling". Often referred to, occasionally actually seen- most of the young adults in the books, especially the first, have casual sex, but the mores of the time mean it's hard to find a comfortable place for it. Volume one of Spike Milligan's legendary memoirs is a hilarious, subversive first-hand account of WW2 Before Spike Milligan wrote The Goon Show he had to go to war. He wrote seven short books about the experience based on his diaries, here's the first one which concerns joining the army, training, starting a jazz band during training, more training, exploits/hijinks/affairs, and finally getting shipped off to Northern Africa, where the book ends.At Victoria Station the R.T.O. gave me a travel warrant, a white feather and a picture of Hitler marked 'This is your enemy'. I searched every compartment, but he wasn't on the train. At 4.30, June 2nd, 1940, on a summer's day all mare's tails and blue sky we arrived at Bexhill-on-Sea, where I got off. It wasn't easy. The train didn't stop there. This has to be one of the funniest war memoirs ever written. Spike brings his trademark manic eye to bear on his own experiences as a gunner in World War II and, while some of the events are tragic (obviously) you still barely get a chance to breathe between laughs.

It tells the story of Spike Milligan’s war experience. Or at least the early parts of it. The not joining up, the joining up, the band, the chaos of training and preparation, the sex and the boredom. Milligan’s book is one of the few war memoirs to make clear how much sex was going on then. Like now I suppose but with the added knowledge that the person you were shagging might be dead tomorrow. Which is also true if today if you choose to think about. Which you don’t because that way lies melancholy and poetry.

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Their band has been warned by an officer, that if they smuggle their instruments on board, the instruments will be thrown overboard. Later in voyage, after a miserable passage, the officer asks if the instruments are actually on board (which they are) and will the band please play to entertain the men. Algeria comes into view. For all the privations of army life, it is clear that Spike had a lot of fun during this period, and the humour that was to make his name with the Goons and beyond is here in abundance. That said, Adolf Hitler: My Part in his Downfall ends just as Spike's regiment arrives in Algiers for its first taste of action and, whilst there is some tragedy in this memoir, things will inevitably get more serious from here on in.

General Failure: Major Jenkins, who is loathed by his troops for his devotion to military bullshit and who demotes Milligan from Lance-Bombardier to Gunner for no better reason than that Milligan is more popular than he is. Of course, Milligan admits to being an Unreliable Narrator so there may have been better reasons than that. At Victoria Station the R.T.O. gave me a travel warrant, a white feather and a picture of Hitler marked ‘This is your enemy’. I searched every compartment, but he wasn’t on the train. urn:oclc:877046228 Scandate 20090814185344 Scanner scribe2.sheridan.archive.org Scanningcenter sheridan Worldcat (source edition) At Victoria station the R.T.O. gave me a travel warrant, a white feather and a picture of Hitler marked 'This is your enemy'. I searched every compartment, but he wasn't on the train.

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Spike (Terence Alan) was born to British parents in India, where his father, an army captain, was stationed in Poona (Pune). The family lived in India and Rangoon (Yangon) before returning to Britain when Spike was twelve. To spell it out: we have Tom Cruise, Nazis, a movie whose pre-release buzz was so ominous that Tom has to promote the arse out of it in every TV studio in America - plus his need to make amends for previous outbreaks of weapons-grade craziness. It's basically a perfect storm. Mood Whiplash: The books are mostly light in tone, especially the pre-battle fatigue ones, but these are war diaries. In particular, the death of Lt. Goldsmith, a direct hit on the Command Post, and random macabre daydreams are sprinkled through the earlier books - the fact that these events often come right after the silliest moments makes them all the starker. It's particularly brutal listening to the audiobooks read by Milligan himself. Simple yet effectively stirring and utterly believable because this was exactly how everybody felt in those days. Americans Are Cowboys: The Americans rarely appear either in the real or spoof segments, but when they do they are basically cowboy stereotypes, such as wanting to put the tanks in a circle with the women and children on the inside.

Running Gag: From the second book onwards, Milligan uses pictures of British soldiers fighting in colonial wars from the Victorian period with captions suggesting they're supposed to be from the war - presumably a spoof on how the British Army tended to be underequipped and technologically inferior compared to the Germans. He also experiences this when the Bill Hall Trio briefly have a gig in Dublin; he's never been to Ireland before (his father was Irish) and he loves the place. Close in stature to Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear in his command of the profound art of nonsense' Guardian We looked at the blaze and it seemed to be getting bigger. I think we all knew it was London. My mother, father and brother were there. I'm not sure how i felt. Helpless, I suppose. Bombardier Edser switched on the BBC Midnight News, but there was no mention of any raid. Lots of the lads from London (we were a London regiment) found it hard to sleep that night. In the dark of our bedrooms, there were attempts at reassurance'.Deliberate Values Dissonance: While the book contains many things that would be considered politically incorrect today, Milligan takes many opportunities to exaggerate and lampoon some of the uglier attitudes of the day, such as the way housewives were treated as little more than slaves or the blatant racism of the white jazz scene. there is no light so full of hope as the dawn; amber, resin, copper lake, brass green. One by one, they shed themselves until the sun rose golden in a white sky...I closed my eyes and turned my face to the sun. I fell down a hatchway. (p 140) Spike's silliness is infectious and the book contains a winning combination of word play, self deprecating humour and social history. And, a very credible evocation, of the life of a conscript at the start of the war right down to the smelliness of the army uniforms and how nobody got the correct size. The book contains plenty of surprising and frequently outrageous anecdotes, many of which are loud out loud funny.