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Review
‘The sense of front-line danger is palpable and the smell of action is remarkable. His descriptions of the sudden violent actions are breathtaking. This is battle as it is done’
Melvyn Bragg, Evening Standard
‘Fraser’s is quite the most vividly realistic account of the sharp end of the war in Burma that I have read… If you have enjoyed Fraser’s Flashman books you will enjoy the racy, pacy, utterly authentic account of far away long ago soldiering’
John Mellors, London Magazine
‘This is a book as good as anything Fraser has written… A moving and penetrating contribution to the literature of the Burma campaign’
Max Hastings, Daily Telegraph
‘A brilliantly entertaining read, with all the narrative power, gift for dialogue and surprising twists and turns that would be expected of Flashman’s creator’
Gary Mead, Financial Times
Product Description
‘There is no doubt that [Quartered Safe Out Here] is one of the great personal memoirs of the Second World War’ John Keegan
Life and death in Nine Section, a small group of hard-bitten and (to modern eyes) possibly eccentric Cumbrian borderers with whom the author, then nineteen, served in the last great land campaign of World War II, when the 17th Black Cat Division captured a vital strongpoint deep in Japanese territory, held it against counter-attack and spearheaded the final assault in which the Japanese armies were, to quote General Slim, “torn apart”.
--This text refers to the Paperback edition.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
36 of 37 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book deserves 5 stars because it is one of the very best of its kind. It is a soldier's memoir but what sets it apart is how vividly the writing conjures up the atmosphere of fighting in Burma in 1945; the heat, the rain, the weirdness and terror of fighting in the jungle at night, the rough good humour and companionship, the sudden death, the team dynamics of a battle hardened section and the espirit de corps of the multi racial Fourteenth Army under General Slim. You finish this book having laughed a lot and tasted a little of what it must have been like to soldier in Burma. It's a great little book.
47 of 49 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This really is the kind of book that should be on the history exam syllabus. At a time when the West is obsessed with post-imperial guilt, and to have been on the the winning side in the war is often regarded as something to be ashamed of, this book offers a valuable insight into why, sixty years ago, people thought it important to fight. The long periods of tedious activity (enlivened by GMF's focus on the humourous and the absurd) are contrasted with brief but intense fire-fights that take the reader inside the experience of infantry battle; the episode when GMF describes the loss of a third of his unit in under 2 minutes is harrowing. But what makes this memoir so wonderfully written is GMF's ability to describe the emotions and concerns of him and his comrades (and his thoughts on the Hiroshima bomb are fascinating, if not quite what you would expect by the end of the book)...
58 of 61 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
George Macdonald Fraser has such a superb and accessible style that at first that I thought it wouldn't be suited to the brutal and harsh details
of the Burma campaign. Yet as the memoir goes on the detail becomes much grimmer, much more vivid, and you really do gain an insight into the soldiers view of war. The fear, the confusion, the spoken and unspoken comradeship of the soldiers.
of the Burma campaign. Yet as the memoir goes on the detail becomes much grimmer, much more vivid, and you really do gain an insight into the soldiers view of war. The fear, the confusion, the spoken and unspoken comradeship of the soldiers.
You also find out what he thinks about the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and it makes for fascinating reading. What George Macdonald Fraser really does is bring home to you, that war is often 'little' violent terrifying skirmishes rather than huge massive well ordered battles.
He is a little too dismissive of today's more emotional society, rather than the stiff upper lip of the second world war. Although you can understand up to a point why he is so critical.
The great thing about this memoir is that there is no false sentimentality. It is honest, and some will no doubt find his views controversial.
However, he does have the benefit of having being in battle, and that gives his views a force that is hard to deny.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
one of the best authors of our time .
I felt a real sadness upon hearing of the death of this much loved and admired author , he wrote like no other and no one else seemed to have his knack of drawing you in to the... Read more
Published 1 month ago by The Bard England
Simply the best
I am a big fan of military history books and I must have read hundreds over the years. Of all of these books Quartered Safe Our Here is head and shoulders above all others. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Piper Pringle
I only wish I had read it sooner
A widely praised memoir, but this is no 'war-p*rn' tale of commandos with bayonets between their teeth but that of ordinary men in extraordinary circumstances--their attitude, I... Read more
Published 2 months ago by D.Harthill
when you're quartered safe out here
a very good book by a very good author,who must be turning in his grave on this,the day still more cuts have been announced to our armed forces.400 more Gurkhas have been cut. Read more
Published 4 months ago by chris jackson
Great memoir
I was really looking forward to this as my Uncle was a 14th Army veteran and my own dad served in Burma just after the war (sadly neither with us any more). Read more
Published 9 months ago by Pagiccus
Brilliant
A great read that is compelingly honest. This account with no false heroism or added hindsight that has been adjusted for modern tastes brings a period of history vividly to life.
Published 9 months ago by MusicMadMark
An unmissable portrayal of war
This book is a must read for anybody with a passing interest of a soldiers account of war. At times funny, never PC, and sometimes emotional, the author captivates and enthrals... Read more
Published 9 months ago by R. G. Anders
marred by the dialect
George MacDonald Fraser took the job of rendering his old Fourteenth Army comrades' Cumbrian dialect very seriously - he even gives us a little explanatory note about it. Read more
Published 10 months ago by gille liath
An infantryman's view of the war in Burma
Towards the end of his life George McDonald Fraser wrote this memoir of his experiences as a very young man fighting in the last battles of the Burma campaign. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Aidan J. McQuade
A timeless classic about men and warfare
What sets this apart from other memoirs is that despite the fact that it covers a period nearly 70 years ago, the feelings and comments from a small band of disparate characters... Read more
Published 13 months ago by MGR
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