A Corporal's War

Norman, twenty years old, married, and father of a young child, struggles to make ends meet in the last gasps of the Great Depression. To improve the family's financial situation, he enlists in the army. He figures that when his six months National Service ends he will be twenty-one and entitled to earn adult wages.A good plan, but one that is foiled by Britain's declaration of war against Nazi Germany.In 62 Company, Royal Engineers, Norman forges friendships that sustain him...
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Norman, twenty years old, married, and father of a young child, struggles to make ends meet in the last gasps of the Great Depression. To improve the family's financial situation, he enlists in the army. He figures that when his six months National Service ends he will be twenty-one and entitled to earn adult wages.A good plan, but one that is foiled by Britain's declaration of war against Nazi Germany.In 62 Company, Royal Engineers, Norman forges friendships that sustain him throughout the war years. Facing the dangers and surviving Dunkirk, he is forced into maturity too early and too quickly, but primed to face the killing heat of India, and monsoon mud and rain during mopping up operations against the Japanese in northern Burma where they relieve an exhausted Chindit unit and come into contact with Merrill's Marauders.Norman's many adventures include becoming friends with a wealthy Indian who is a subversive in the "Quit India" campaign; a unnerving encounter with a supernatural goddess; making the perilous flight over "The Hump" into China with the United States Army Air Force; raiding American supply depots, and risking his life to save the lives of Indian soldiers in a raging torrent.Eventually, the atomic bomb brings the war in the Far East to an end allowing Norman to return home. After a four-year absence and having endured the horrors of war, Norman worries, is he the same person as when he left? How much he has changed? Will his wife, Ivy, recognize him? Will she welcome him home with open arms?