Wars and Shadows: Memoirs of General Sir David Fraser

This exceptional memoir by one of Britain's most distinguished living soldiers describes a life lived against the backdrop of the most significant military events of the last century. David Fraser was raised in a military family deep in the shadow of the First World War. He absconded from school to enlist at the earliest possible moment after the Second was declared. He was intimately involved afterwards in crises in Suez, Cyprus and Malaya, and eventually became Vice Chief of the General Staff. Wars and Shadows is one of the last notable memoirs of the great conflict in the middle of the last century. It evokes the lives and characters of many of those who fought - and, often, lost their lives - vividly and tenderly. Like the very best memoirs, as well as entertaining us, it also allows us to reflect on how we might have reacted in similar circumstances to those the author faced, and whether eventually we might be able to give an account even half so satisfying as this of our own lives and times.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Part One 1 A Melancholy Radiance 2 Northern Lights 3 Figures in the Foreground 4 Foreigners and Others 5 A Long Summer Afternoon Part Two 6 Waiting in an Ante-Room 7 Uniform at Last 8 Time of Preparation 9 The End of Waiting 10 Norman Summer 11 'To the Last Breath of Man and Beast' 12 Farewell to Armour Part Three 13 No War, No Peace 14 Times of Turbulence 15 Allies and Reflections

About the Author :
General Sir David Fraser, born 1920, was educated at Eton and then Christ Church College, Oxford. In 1940 he enlisted to join his father's regiment the Grenadier Guards and remained in the army, eventually reaching status of KCB (Knight's Commander of Bath) in 1973. His 1985 biography of Alan Brooke, the foremost military advisor to Prime Minister Winston Churchill confirmed Fraser's status as a military historian. He wrote a total of 21 books, many of which are non-fiction works about his experiences in the British army and the Conflicts in Europe in the twentieth century. His work And We Shall Shock Them All breaks down all elements of the combat from high end strategy to on the ground battles and victories, a work that also shows how the seeds of World War II were sown at the end of the previous war, twenty-one years earlier.