AN IMAGE OF WAR by Henniker, Mark

London 1987, Leo Cooper, UK First edition, hard bound in dust jacket, VG/VG condition, ( light dj surface scuffing) 6 1/2 x 9 1/2, , 266 pages, index, maps, index. ------------------------------------- Those who served in Malaya during the Emergency and who had the good fortune there-after to read Brigadier Henniker's brilliant account of his time as commander of 63 Gurkha Infantry Brigade, Red Shadow over Malaya, are unlikely to forget the skill with which he evoked the unique atmosphere of that unusual campaign. It will, therefore, come as no surprise to them to find that his touch is equally assured in this new volume of memoirs in which he casts the net of his memory further back and over a much wider canvas.In May, 1940, he was a Captain in the Royal Engineers, at home on leave with his parents in Suffolk. Soon, after a brief encounter with the CIGS at his Club, he is off to France where Monty tells him that There is nothing to be afraid of in the Germans. We shall see them off.' But Monty was referring to the future and it was not long before the newly promoted Major Henniker was heading back to England with two other officers and thirty men in a couple of rowing-boats which had somehow found their way from Teddington to Dunkirk! The reader will discover for himself how this unorthodox naval expedition fared, but he should by now have realized that the author was not one to stand and wait but, rather, one who believed in keeping as firm a hold as possible on his Field Company's destiny.Back home he takes a parachuting course and has some interesting talks with General 'Boy' Browning, and others, about the possibilities of that then little-understood form of warfare. After an alarming flight to Norway and back-but only just-the author is off to North Africa, and from there we follow him through Sicily-where he was wounded-to Italy, back to England and thence to Arnhem and on to the Battles of the Rhineland which heralded the final collapse of the Third Reich.This is not a story of momentous decisions in high places which radically altered the course of the war (though the author does claim to have started the fashion in the B.E.F. of officers wearing corduroy trousers!); it is, rather, the story of an unusually perceptive officer who gave a great deal of thought not only to the tactical and technical waging of the war at his level but also to the physical and spiritual welfare of his men. That, combined with the writers lucid and light-hearted style, make it no exaggeration to say that this is a book quite outside the ordinary run of military memoirs.