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

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Milligan's flippant, conversational tone keeps things wonderfully lively and balances both morbid darkness and cheery camaraderie on an even keel; for all the hilarity and horror, there are also lovely, leisurely moments when the troops celebrate with song, dance and fervent affairs with ladies in between.

During one training deployment, Milligan and others were caught hiding their rifles in a loft, resulting in two weeks detention. I read it to bits and the more I read it the more I appreciated that Spike has given a fair picture, surreal as it is, of what life was like for young men like him and his bombadier mates who suddenly found themselves in the army. The preface anticipates the book will be part of a trilogy; years later, the cover of the fourth volume said: "Don't be fooled this is the last, volume four of the war memoirs. One of the gunners, however, loses a hand when a shell he is pushing into the howitzer's breach explodes. But along the way Spike and his friends get involved in many amusing - and some not-so amusing - scrapes.By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions. Ultimately, however, Milligan published seven volumes covering his war service, his first nervous breakdown and reallocation to rear-echelon duties, his demob and early years trying to break into the entertainment industry. Abolutely hilarious and well written memoirs of Spike Milligan's time in the service (Part 1 at least).

There is also Bill Maynard as the sargent and fellow recruits Tony Selby and "Keeping Up Appearences" Onslow, Geoffrey Hughes but they don't do much with them Lowe who know's his character well comes off best of the supporting cast and Dale is wonderfully demented as Spike, but the film doesn't take off.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. It is refreshing to reflect the changes and progress that has been made by our society now, all due to the atitudes of these brave and fearless mem. This is an utterly surreal, joyous and irreverent look at Spike Milligan’s time as a young soldier in WWII.

You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. Since my copy of Spike Milligan’s Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall is on Kindle and to get it out of the way there are some nice drawings throughout the book and they do not show well on a Kindle Viewer. The not joining up, the joining up, the band, the chaos of training and preparation, the sex and the boredom. Absent a major background in The Goon Squad (which I do not have) or other 1950-1980 British radio and television comedy (which I do) it is likely that a lot of this will mean little to even a modern Englishman. If you roared with laughter after finishing 'Catch 22', this one comes highly recommended to you, to see the other side of the Atlantic going bonkers over the war long before the actual fighting began.

As Milligan himself states in the introduction, many terrible things happened in the war, but humour helped him cope. Milligan's experiences are the most heartfelt, amusing, painful and sincere ever to have been written about WWII. This book, the first in a series, looks at the time he spent with his unit wandering around Southern Britain learning how to soldier, and it's hilarious. 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.