Mr. Davis listens
Due to various events over the weekend and the week I was unable to finish the review, for which I apologize. However, Mr. Davis who is a guest editor, ever wise patron, and great friend of mine stepped in with a guest review. I’d like to extend my gratitude to him and I hope y’all will enjoy the review.
Hello, readers once again your regular reviewer has fallen into the same blunder as public schools and given me a platform. While June is usually WWII month, I thought it might be good to share a history book, as well as a little bit of a story. So, some of you know me in the real world, others do not but the reason I go by Mr. Davis here is that I am an educator and as such, I often take my work home with me. What you may not know is that I also drive a fair distance every day to get to the school where I teach, and because of these two facts I find that audiobooks are often a better option for me than sitting and reading. So to that end, I may begin offering a new type of review with your usual host’s permission (or to be useful during holidays and other time off) where I review audiobooks.
The first book I’d like to offer here has as much of a story about how I found it as what I have learned about the author. “Those Who Fall”, is the first and only book ever written by retired Army Air Force bomber pilot John G Muirhead, written in 1987. This book does not feel like many of the other stories that we have come to know about the European Theater, and was recommended to me by a close family friend. See nearly every year my family returns to Topsail Island North Carolina, just south of Jacksonville, and I less frequently go with. We have the kind of family there who is not related by blood or marriage, but older family friends are called “aunt” or “grammy” by younger generations. This is how I know my “cousin” Dave who operates a charter fishing operation and several other maritime operations. One night we were having dinner with him and his wife, and afterward while the kids played, my mother chatted with his wife. He turned to me and started asking what I like to read. Suddenly Dave opened up about this book and how he first read it when it came out, he had taken it to sea with him and ended up reading it multiple times. When he got back to shore he realized how much it had stuck with him and contacted the publisher and managed to track down contact information for the author (this is in 1988 so that means writing a letter or calling). After a few days of trying he manages to get a phone number in Hanover Massachusetts, which he calls and learns that John G. Muirhead passed away just three days prior.
After that summer I went to find a copy of this book spoken of so highly by a man whose own family was shocked that he could speak with someone for two hours straight. When I searched online I found it was out of print and there were some copies available but not many at the time one was asking for over $500 but there was an audiobook. This audiobook was narrated by Robertson Dean, who started as an actor but later transitioned to audiobooks. Robertson was raised in Connecticut which you will see why that is fitting in just a moment, and he trained at Yale’s Drama School before working on Broadway than Hollywood. He has appeared on Star Trek: TNG, and Nemesis, as well as Vanilla Sky, and the show 24. But, when he found audiobooks he decided that this was a much better career option for him.
First Lieutenant John G. Muirhead was born in 1918, grew up in New England and was the younger of two brothers. Most of what can be learned about him is from only a few scattered sources and his book as it is a first-hand account of his time in the service. Muirhead’s book follows his time as a B-17 bomber pilot stationed in southern Italy during the latter half of the second world war. Muirhead begins his book and each chapter with snippets of poems, some of them tie nicely in with the chapter that follows, others are jarring and feel like they pull you out of the memoir. The poem “Mystic and Cavalier” by Lionel Johnson, opens the book and within the poem’s first verse the name of the book is found. This is the unique strength of the writer where he demonstrates a powerful command of English literature. The combination of his writing tone and the voice of Mr. Dean combine to bring you the impression of someone who has truly lived the experiences described.
The book opens by describing life on the Foggia Army Airfield Complex, describing it in almost pastoral terms punctuated with the kind of crass language you would expect on a military base. With the exception of one vividly described bombing mission, Muirhead spends most of the first quarter of the book talking about the mundane aspects of life in allied occupied Italy (This would have been the majority of his experiences, even when you’re on the ground, actual combat that is people actively trying to kill you makes up a very small part of your time. It's an incredibly important time since you know, people are trying to kill you but it’s often over in minutes). He discusses a trip south into town with a fellow pilot which nearly ends in disaster when their agreed ride drops them off miles from where they thought they were going, they are caught in a severe rainstorm and wander into a small farmhouse where a stereotypical Italian mother feeds them finally and takes care of them for the evening. Muirhead paints a vivid picture of these kinds of events that are rich in detail so you feel that you are taking this long miserable but ultimately positive walk with him. This is contrasted when he talks about flying combat missions, there his descriptions become much more clipped (I couldn’t say without reading the book but it sounds like he’s adopting the language of a military report){to clarify it sounds almost like minimalist poetry, rather than use stronger language he repeats words, for example describing the movement of his plain he repeats “shaking shaking shaking” to clue the listener that it is a violent movement}. The sentences are short and choppy stripped down to an almost poetic cadence giving only the barest minimum to show what is happening and how he and his crew are filled with terror (I have to wonder if that terror ever went away. My own time was brief and frankly much safer than Lt. Muirhead’s but some of the emotions still lingered even years later, I can only wonder if writing the book helped him expel those feelings or not.){I have a strong suspicion it is, I feel like the whole book written 40 years after the events is a final attempt to exercise these demons and trauma from his soul.} .
After these descriptions of terror, he returns back to his well-read, cultured prose where you actually learn the most about his mental process and the nature of flying a bomber. The middle of the book takes a long break from combat to conduct very routine procedures of getting planes in working order and training co-pilots. Here his reminiscing becomes more and more maudlin, showing very clear depression and stress in his situation. He starts forming friendships with more individuals including an intelligence officer whose appearance reminds him of one Vladimir Lenin. He shows a kind of gallows humor here joking with his friend nicknamed “Ilyich '' saying he is going to blow up New Jersey, which communism aside I can’t really disagree with. But when his friend is reassigned back home Muirhead becomes increasingly withdrawn from those around him while he returns to combat duty. Here the book changes tone again becoming its darkest, Muirhead watches completely disconnected from the world around him as he flies mission after mission watching comrades die (We deployed over 10,000 B-17s in Europe in WW2 and lost over 4,000, 26,000 men were killed, 28,000 taken prisoner. Imagine having to live through that and realizing that every friend you make is a very real chance to suffer lost to the reaper. For comparison the modern USAF fields about 5,400 manned planes and is one of the largest modern air forces in the world and is so overwhelmingly dominant that most nations wouldn’t even bother to take the field against it.)
Muirhead takes us down this very dark path of watching him become more and more broken by his experiences. Finally, in the last quarter of the book, the action that was promised from the beginning happens as a final push to the oil fields of Romania. There Muirhead and his crew are shot down and quickly captured by Bulgarian forces and taken to a POW camp. The last quarter of the book is an unvarnished account of being taken captive, there is no great act of heroism though. This is not the great escape, or Saving Private Ryan, this is one man, who though he is an officer he realizes he is woefully unprepared to lead his men in this situation (I’m not sure anyone can be prepared){True but I feel like he is especially harsh on himself especially when he points to enlisted men who take command and start ensuring that the injured get food and water}. Muirhead shows no shame in admitting to feeling weak and beaten, as he finds himself sick with lice and dysentery. The book ends with the end of the war in Europe, Muirhead and two friends who both had suffered more serious injury than he had walking out of a POW camp on the top of a hill somewhere in Bulgaria.
This book and by extension audiobook feels deeply personal, like a man exercising his demons, yet it still is a powerful and informative read. The book begins with Muirhead literally saying that he supposes all men who have served end up boring their, wives, friends, and children with stories of their service. As such, unlike your usual reviewer, I feel it's improper in this instance to put a letter grade on the story itself. However, I will give Robertson Dean’s reading of the tail an A-, he brings a familiarity to the words that keep true to what is written without distracting. My only complaint with his work is a slight mispronunciation of a few Italian words, but that can be forgiven and I only notice them because I’ve heard them in my family growing up. With that thought I turn you back over to your usual reviewer and fade back into the biology supply closet to plot my next appearance.
. I should be back next week folks, barring any additional disasters. Until then, please stay safe and keep reading. Thank you.
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