Career Soldiers Story

1 great deal of work and a great deal of history have gone into al Sir Frederick Morgan’s autobiography, “Peace and War—a r’s Life”, but it will have more appeal to other soldiers than to neral reader.

OUGH the General was n at the right time and in the rcumstances to be amongst Brass during the last war, >k of his is in no way a on of his war in the sense se of the other War Lords, itgomery, Brooke, Eisenhower shall, were. As the title , it is a plain story of a life—with “plain” the opera d. oldier engages in no literary gimmicks and presents a life accomplishment with Public leprecation. This, while no lorally praiseworthy, is likely the general run of reader, these days accustomed to ce in his literature, occasion id. n was born in 1894—“ one quire’s relations”—and there , in due course, the right kind ratory school and the right Public School for a pre military career, and finally h. His first posting to India ?rief skirmish before being id with the Lahore Division e in 1914 to try to hold the til Kitchener could finish his army in England, he Lahore Division Artillery joined a Canadian Division still later one, the 4th Aus fivision. 9 he was back in India and was in the same class at Staff College as Captain J. Slim, who was later to Field Marshal, Chief of the General Staff, and later /ernor-General of Australia, Morgan served about 20 i India but returned to in 1934 to become part of ;rial Reserve whose task it >repare for the coming war er. ic moved in the same circles gomery, then a Brigadier, able to have a preview of personal battle with Top t was a time when mounted /ere turning into mechanised but a General Blimp held should carry on traditionally s, field-boots and riding The Brigadier did not, and

persisted in wearing trousers on all occasions. On the day that the General desired to inspect Monty’s Brigade, the iron Brigadier was mysteriously confined to his bed and they interviewed him there. A wasp had “crawled up his trousers-leg and stung him on a tender portion”— something which could not have happened if he had been “properly dressed”; the General found it a punishment that admirably fitted the crime.

In 1943, Morgan became Chief of Staff for “Overlord”, the operation that led up to D-Day in June, 1944, and handed over gracefully, and, he says, happily, in Christmas, 1943, to Supreme Commander General Eisenhower who brought with him his own Chief of Staff, General Bedell Smith. Morgan, thereafter, became Deputy Chief of Staff at Eisenhower’s Supreme Headquarters.

For two years after the war he was Director of UNRRA Operations in Germany, and finished his working life in 1955 as Controller of Atomic Energy in the UK Ministry of Supply.

This is the story of a successful life into which the purely personal is not allowed to intrude very much.

(Peace And War—A Soldier’S

LIFE. Hodder and Stoughton Ltd. 31/-.)

Two Novels About

Migrants

Both ends of the Australian

migration problem are probed in

two separate novels this month —lnto the Sun, by Gwen Mere dith; and La Bora, by Philip M.

Jones. After the theme, all re semblance between the stories ends.

Gwen Meredith, who has made a life-work out of writing a marathon radio serial for the Aus tralian Broadcasting Commission (The Lawsons and Blue Hills), chops off portions occasionally and turns them into a novel. Into the Sun is produced on this formula, although adapted for reading, and will hold no surprises for listeners to the

)f which there are alleged to 'ons. ugh this sort of thing is un » produce anything resembling e, if you attack it with an ind without any prior know : the deathless characters who through the serial in droves, 11 find it a readable story of ;tralian outback, one contains all the in s we have learned to expect story about the Flying Doctor and concerns mostly Sister Jamieson, a nursing sister ut of Glasgow who, with rian thoroughness, is deter ;o adjust to anything—even ying the man she initially slikes. Her brother Donald her along the migration trail cotland, and persuades his ; fiancee, Ellie, to follow him to find when she finally the sand and the salt-bush of hat he has got over the idea.

Australians try to avoid liv the Centre like they try to he plague. It needs no ion to conjure up the added id tribulations for Heather, and Ellie and these, with the jredith background, make the ira is a different kettle of ving as a background a camp in Trieste, and Aus :ing only at the misty end r-off rainbow—for those who to qualify for the one-way luthor worked in Italy for as an interviewing and officer for the Australian ent of Immigration and here the material for this, his 'el. The atmosphere which es is ideal for moralising, using and soul-searching, and o of the piece, George does plenty of it. depressed by the knowledge has the right to choose the refugees Yugoslav, \ustrian and others—should *sh start in a new land or they’ll be condemned to a it living death in the refugee Occasionally his heart is to rule his commonsense, nay account for the occas 1-ball migrant thrown up in t is not made any easier by native of Trieste, who while herself to be drawn into an ;h Marston, resents him be the power of yea or nay lolds over her people, e characters in this book much—which, perhaps, is

life. Most people talk too much.

Otherwise it is a competent enough novel although on a very ambitious theme for any first attempt. (INTO THE SUN and LA BORA. Both Published by Angus and Robertson Ltd.

Priced at 21/6 and 18/9 respectively.)

Bony Goes West

T*HE biggest surprise in Arthur Up “"r field’s Australian mysteries is where his half-caste Aboriginal detec tive-inspector Napoleon Bonaparte is going to turn up next.

In successive novels, Bony has leaped around from Bermagui, on the

South Coast of NSW, to Robertson in the same State, and then taken a long hop to Western Australia. But north, south, east or west, Upfield’s Australia is the authentic article and hence the charm of this writer’s novels which otherwise lack a lot of the standard equipment of the who dunnit.

For this newest number, Bony and the White Savage, the famous detec tive does his stuff on the very south west point of the Australian contin ent—near Cape Leeuwin.

Upheld tries some psychology, a bit of new-fangled sex and a lot of

tive horse-sense in a typical t will do nothing to estrange he elevated types who work Times Literary Supplement Bony stories—which does redeem them in our un eyes.

And The White Savage,

by Heinemann. Aust. price 16/-.)

New in Paper Backs

Female Of The

'» by Sapper. This was one >riginal Bulldog Drummond rst published in 1928. Sapper of the first thriller writers at a later stage the characters d seem to have been carried nother writer. (Great Pan;

’Athway To The Sun,

Timms. One in the series ustralian author covering the

pioneering period in Australia. This JJ? v f was A set in the new 1830’c f fP^fi tei p Australia in the 1830 s. (Pacific Books; 5/6.) THF canhc nnxmci: u l STnfii mS 2 F f WI J^?u EE ’ by £ irst of now famous Napoleon Bonaparte detective stories originally published well over 30 years ago. Bony, in 1924, doesn’t differ much from the Bony of 1962 and neither, for the matter of that, does his creator. It is hard to understand why, with Upfield, the badge of refinement is to make conversation with the stilted exactitude of a grammar book. (Pacific Books; 5/6.)

In Flanders Fields, By Leon

Wolff. Presumably the people of the 1917 generation believed their leaders infallible heroes. It takes the per spective of over 40 years to see them a f somethln g worse than common clay. The author of this book cuts generals and politicians down to size and shows the bloody, muddy cam paigns on the Western Front in 1917 when British armies suffered half a million casualties in four months as some of the greatest lunacy of the age. (Pan Giant; 5/6.)

Murder Of Olympia By

Margot Neville. A whodunnit by an

Australian writer with Melbo# background during the Olyn Games of 1956. (Fontana; 4/4) BLUE HILLS, by Gwen Merec This contains some of the episode complete in themselves—in the* Country-Hour serial of the |s name. This serial—first episodes \ under the title of “The Lawsonj has been taken in daily doses by tralian listeners for about 20 y and shows no signs of its author giving up. (Pacific Books; 5/6.)

Zoo Quest For A Drag

by David Attenborough. This 1 is one of the natural results of BBC television programme 1 Quest conducted by Attenboro He went to Indonesia for this! ticular quest and saw a great! more than dragons. Great I 4/-).

My Love Must Waitj

Ernestine Hill. The classic stor one of the early “greats” of Austi Matthew Flinders, whose life was long frustration. It was he whoa Australia her modern name,l charted so much of her coastliJ who got little personal happiness! life and had to fight hard for n nition. (Pacific Books; 7/6.) I

The Cattle King, By Lo

Idriess. One of the earlier st from this writer. It tells how I of 13 who left home with 5/-ii pocket and riding a one-eyed I ended as Sir Sidney Kidman, o of 100 stations, 100,000 square! of property and several millioi money. (Pacific Books; 5/6.) I CLAUDELLE, by Erskinel well. We reviewed it a coup] years ago—the story of a Sou miss, jilted by a soldier who caught in the draft, and deter* to make every other man —inch the preacher—pay in hard I (Great Pan; 4/-.)

We Joined The Navy

John Winton. A funny book! the way they have in the Roy all with recruits, their best girls andij officers. It has been a best seller first published in 1959. (Greai 4/-.)

The Enemy Camp, By Je

Weidman. This is a long-wmde count of a Jewish man’s strugf! keep the place he had won for self in his own world. Out net have the quaint idea that bet Jew is a matter of religion, p tain circles in America it’s rej as being some kind of social lei This story couldn’t have hap] anywhere else but the USA. I Major; 7/6.)

HILL OF DOVES, by Stuart One of a series about south in the days before it became \frica with a capital S. It’s n the Transvaal, with the moving in on top of the nd the Boers determined that 11 trek no further; this time lig in and fight. It was part of liminaries that led up to the ar. (Fontana Monarch; 7/6.) E’S LUCK, by Lennie Lower, John O’Grady came along nt years to give Australia 5 a Weird Mob”, this was re as Australia’s funniest book, mour of another generation— published first 30 years ago— dill funny in parts, even for Sydneysiders. (Pacific Books;

Dle By Starlight, By

hort, who seems to have the ily of Western literature these The fight between ranchers id-hungry squatters who had ven an open-go by the Home ict is the theme of this one. ia; 4/-.)

Jel To Boldness, By

1 Pape, is what the title sug i sequel to a former book by le author, “Boldness Be My . That one told what hap after his bomber was shot over Holland in 1941. The follows the fate of the people elped him then and of the who sent some of his friends deaths. (Great Pan; 4/-.)