One of the best jobs I ever had was editing a London men's magazine called TOWN in the 1960s. It was in the Esquire tradition, was published by Clive Labovitch and Michael Heseltine (who later went on to become Deputy Prime Minister under Margaret Thatcher), and had a staff of talented if occasionally eccentric journalists, one of whom, Jane Wilson, wrote up a storm, the first of her many bonfires, and became my wife of 41 years.
Also on the editorial staff was a fearless reporter named Brian Moynahan, who went to such dangerous places as Vietnam and Cambodia in search of stories, and later moved from Town to the London Sunday Times (pre-Murdoch) and other prestigious journals.
I lost track of Brian when I returned to America, and always wondered how (and what) he was doing. Now comes word of what sounds like a tremendous success -- a new book called JUNGLE SOLDIER about Freddy Spencer Chapman, one of Britain's many World War II heroes. In 1941, Chapman was dispatched to Singapore to train British guerrillas for the coming war with Japan. Setting out from Kuala Lumpur in January, 1942 on a mission to sabotage Japanese supply lines, he became a veritable one-man army. The Japanese deployed 2,000 men to search for what they believed was a squad of 200 Australian guerrillas. Following Japan's invasion of Malaya and the fall of Singapore in February 1942, Chapman found himself stranded. Under these most desperate of circumstances, the man dubbed the "the jungle Lawrence" by Field Marshal Wavell showed his bloody-minded talent for survival. Relentlessly hunted by the Japanese army, he was afflicted by typhus, scabies, pneumonia, blackwater fever, cerebral malaria, dengue fever and ulcers before finally being rescued and evacuated to Ceylon on 13 May 1945. Chapman returned to Malaya by parachute in August to take the Japanese surrender at Penang.
The British reviews of Jungle Soldier have been ectastic. "Crisp, compelling biography... Moynahan has done a terrific job of turning Chapman's life into an elegant narrative. The adventures and achievements are so remarkable that his factual biography reads at times like a Victorian novel, where the central character suffers disaster after disaster ... perhaps this book will help win final recognition for a truly extraordinary man," said the Sunday Times. "Captures the amazing wartime exploits of Freddy Spencer Chapman," raved the Daily Express. "An extraordinary life ... For over three years in the Second World War, he blew up trains, bridges and enemy soldiers in the jungles of Malaya all the while studying birdlife and collecting seeds to send back to Kew Gardens ... Quite why Chapman hasn't found Lawrence of Arabia's fame is anyone's guess," wrote The Guardian. "Brian Moynahan's gripping book gives a fascinating insight into Chapman's upbringing," wrote the Daily Telegraph. And the Daily Mail summed it up: "This story of endurance in the fetid heat of the Malayan jungle is surely one of the most awe-inspiring of the whole war - a courageous and utterly English hero, a man whose extraordinary bravery and tenacity were an inspiration to all who observed him. Only now, with the publication of this biography, will Freddy Spencer Chapman win the recognition his memory deserves."
No American publication of Jungle Soldier appears to be under way, but perhaps those glowing reviews will move an enterprising company into action. Meanwhile, you can get a copy of the British edition (published by Quercus, the folks who discovered Steig Larsson) through Amazon.com. And best wishes to you, Brian...
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