Guest Review of The Last Enemy

Today's post is a guest review by my first follower, whose blog can be found here.
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9/10
Richard Hillary, a young, Oxford-educated Spitfire pilot, wrote “The Last Enemy” as a memoir of his RAF training, his “Battle of Britain” exploits and his slow, painful recovery from severe burns he suffered in aerial combat.

More than that, though, the short book is a reflection on Hillary’s own loss of innocence resulting from the war and the deaths of friends and comrades.

Sentences like “From this flight, Don McDonald did not return” and “From this flight Bubble Waterston did not return” toll repeatedly throughout the latter section of the book.

Ministered to by stoic, often sardonic, and always caring nurses and by a meticulous, brilliant plastic surgeon, Hillary is left to wonder why, despite his horrible burns, he has been allowed to survive. In a sense, he sees himself as his own “Last Enemy.”

It is left to Sebastian Faulks’ biographical introduction to inform the reader of Richard Hillary’s fate.

Partly because of the success of “The Last Enemy,” written in 1941 and published in 1942, the disabled Hillary (his scarred fingers were immobile claws), talked his way back into active service.

From a night-time bomber training mission in January 1943, Richard Hillary did not return.

He was 23 when he died.