Spike Milligan. Rommel? Gunner Who? (1974)

     Spike Milligan. Rommel? Gunner Who? (1974) Part two of Milligan’s memoir of his service in the Royal Artillery, covers the campaign that ended in the taking of Tunis. I haven’t found the other parts of what eventually became a seven part “trilogy”. He passes briefly over the horrors, quotes a good deal of banter, much of which was in the style made famous by The Goon Show. I doubt the quotations are verbatim, but am pretty sure their represent the style. Milligan punctuates his narrative with pictures (almost all of them of colonial armies), and “telegrams” from Hitler, etc.
     I get the impression that Milligan wrote the memoirs for his comrades. War marked him forever, as it did all those of his generation. Maintaining contact with comrades was for many of them the only anchor in a world made surreal in contrast to what they endured. Kurt Vonnegut’s books have the same kind of surreality as this and other  Milligan writing. All in all, a book worth reading, both by Milligan fans and by students of military history. ***