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Product Description
Product Description
Britannia rules the waves TA-RA, but on occasions she waives the rules and Spike is all set to liberate-gasp-Italy. In this fourth volume of war memoirs, Lance-Bombardier Milligan (Spike actually) continues his notorious sage of World War II - from the long remembered outbreak of crabs in monkey to the unfortunate ack-acking of and American killyhawk. Dio mio, is war is a game of cards, someone was cheating.
About the Author
Spike Milligan was born at Ahmednagar in India in 1918. He received his first education in a tent in the Hyderabad Sindh desert and graduated from there, through a series of Roman Catholic schools in India and England, to the Lewisham Polytechnic.
He then plunged into the world of Show Business, seduced by his first stage appearance, at the age of eight, in the nativity play of his Poona convent school. He began his career as a band musician, but has since become famous as a humorous scriptwriter and actor in both films and broadcasting. Spike received an honorary CBE in 1992.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I read this book because my father was in the RA in the 8th army and into Italy as a RGM. I wanted a glimpse of the conditions that my father and others experienced. Although lots of swearing and bantry in it as you would expect when men get together, I felt Spike gave an almost true account. One is surprised that anyone came home sane after what they experienced having to put up with the pouring rain, hauling guns around in the knee deep mud, living in the same clothes day after day, infrequent showers.living in fear of whether you might be the next to go. Some of what we know of his goonish humour came through in this book. A book that you read to the end and achieves for me what I wanted to know. Thank you Spike.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
"Milligan, you should be dismissed from the Army on the grounds of madness". "That's how I got in, sir".
This book begins with Spike and his brave comrades-in-arms crossing from victory in Tunis to the next Allied theatre of war in Italy, wondering what sort of landing awaits them on the beaches at Salerno. Ah, but it's not Jerry that awaits Milligan; it's a sandfly that has his number on it!
After disembarking, the gunners have to keep moving their heavy artillery ever forward to keep up with the 'PBI' (poor bloody infantry) and conditions deteriorate for them to the point that they resemble a collection of soggy, mud-caked scarecrows. But are they downhearted... well, yes, actually. Just as it can't get any worse for Spike the sandfly fever hits him and he's sent back to hospital, surrounded by the sick and dying.
Although he makes a recovery, and his unit eventually remembers to send someone to pick him up (only after he threatens to desert, mind), his health is obviously not 100% as he keeps getting spurts of unaccountable illness. Obvious, that is, to all except Major 'jumbo' Jenkins, the battery's miltary pedant and slave driver. The good Major sees to it that Spike gets his share of hairy moments until, having a mortar lobbed far too close to him for his continued welfare, Spike finally succumbs to the combination of bad health and stress and goes 'bomb-happy'. The Major thinks he just needs further exposure to danger to get him over it but, surprisingly, this does not work. Eventually, unable to function, Spike has to be sent back to hospital for a second time.
It's while convalescing yet again, and with Major Jenkins refusing to forgive and forget and take him back into the Battery, that Spike begins his very first tentative steps toward the spotlight which is drawing him ever closer to his showbiz future. Finding some worthwhile and fulfilling work, generally lackying for others with the odd spot of entertaining thrown in, he's eventually talent-spotted (in more ways than one, as it turns out) by an entertainments Major. He goes up in the world of service entertainment and, just as victory is won in Italy, the 'nice' Major presents him with a parting surprise - two stripes!
All the way Spike meets with the usual variety of both comical and pathetic characters and situations, witnesses the eruption of Vesuvius, explores Pompeii's erotic past, fends off Iti prostitutes ("mea no jig-a-jig; mea Roman Catolica") and holidays on the isle of Capri (doing his best to avoid resident Gracy Fields who is singing at every soldier in sight).
This book begins with Spike and his brave comrades-in-arms crossing from victory in Tunis to the next Allied theatre of war in Italy, wondering what sort of landing awaits them on the beaches at Salerno. Ah, but it's not Jerry that awaits Milligan; it's a sandfly that has his number on it!
After disembarking, the gunners have to keep moving their heavy artillery ever forward to keep up with the 'PBI' (poor bloody infantry) and conditions deteriorate for them to the point that they resemble a collection of soggy, mud-caked scarecrows. But are they downhearted... well, yes, actually. Just as it can't get any worse for Spike the sandfly fever hits him and he's sent back to hospital, surrounded by the sick and dying.
Although he makes a recovery, and his unit eventually remembers to send someone to pick him up (only after he threatens to desert, mind), his health is obviously not 100% as he keeps getting spurts of unaccountable illness. Obvious, that is, to all except Major 'jumbo' Jenkins, the battery's miltary pedant and slave driver. The good Major sees to it that Spike gets his share of hairy moments until, having a mortar lobbed far too close to him for his continued welfare, Spike finally succumbs to the combination of bad health and stress and goes 'bomb-happy'. The Major thinks he just needs further exposure to danger to get him over it but, surprisingly, this does not work. Eventually, unable to function, Spike has to be sent back to hospital for a second time.
It's while convalescing yet again, and with Major Jenkins refusing to forgive and forget and take him back into the Battery, that Spike begins his very first tentative steps toward the spotlight which is drawing him ever closer to his showbiz future. Finding some worthwhile and fulfilling work, generally lackying for others with the odd spot of entertaining thrown in, he's eventually talent-spotted (in more ways than one, as it turns out) by an entertainments Major. He goes up in the world of service entertainment and, just as victory is won in Italy, the 'nice' Major presents him with a parting surprise - two stripes!
All the way Spike meets with the usual variety of both comical and pathetic characters and situations, witnesses the eruption of Vesuvius, explores Pompeii's erotic past, fends off Iti prostitutes ("mea no jig-a-jig; mea Roman Catolica") and holidays on the isle of Capri (doing his best to avoid resident Gracy Fields who is singing at every soldier in sight).
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Most people will only know Spike Milligan for his offbeat TV series, silly poems, and the Goon Show, but Spike was in my opinion a superb writer with a gift for transporting the reader effortlessly to the time and place he's writing about. His descriptions of military/wartime life are second to none. Farce, Danger, cameraderie, friendship, loss, suffering, the absurdity of war, the compassion of some people and the callousness of others, it's all here. If I had to take only one set of books with me to a desert island then it would be Spike Milligan's war memoirs - and "Mussolini" is possibly the best of them all.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Bomb happy
At the beginning of the book Spike has a go at critic Clive James for calling his war autobiographies 'unreliable'. Read more
Published 5 months ago by C. Young
Spike's best book
Out of all of Milligan's war memoirs, this one is shaped more like a traditional novel, and is more closely written, building up to a climax which flips the book on its head -... Read more
Published 18 months ago by F. S. Harte
Honesty
Spike's recollections of his time taking the sun in Italy at his majesty's command is a simple and honest account of one man's Italian invasion. Read more
Published 18 months ago by Nasher
Spike Milligan
What can you say but if you've ever been in the service, on operations, and enjoy a bloody good laugh by one of the last Century's great's then you should buy this book. Read more
Published on 14 Sep 2009 by James Curnock
Spike Milligan
This book again is another example of subtle word play that leaves you constantly in stitches thinking about simple jokes. Read more
Published on 1 Sep 2007 by Rob B
World War 2 as it should be told (with added funny bits).
In this book (along with all the others in this 'trilogy' of war memoirs) Spike tells us his war story. Read more
Published on 27 July 2000
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