The Guinea Pig Club: Archibald McIndoe and the RAF in World War II

Product Description

A truly inspiring tale about the history of the Guinea Pig Club.

Plastic surgery was in its infancy before the Second World War ― the most rudimentary techniques were known only to a few surgeons worldwide. The Allies were tremendously fortunate in having the maverick surgeon Archibald McIndoe operating at a small hospital in East Grinstead in the south of England. After arguing with his superiors, McIndoe set up a revolutionary new treatment regime and rightly secured his group of patients, dubbed the Guinea Pig Club, and honoured place in society. Based on extensive research into official records and moving first-person recollections, this extraordinary book brings home the heroism and triumphs of this courageous band of men and contains updated material on how their example is inspiring today’s wounded veterans.

Review

Our feelings of debt to ‘the Few’ are redoubled by reading this marvellous story of courage, endurance and hope. ―
Nigel Jones, author of The War Walk

The first authoritative investigation and analysis of a remarkable wartime phenomenon. . . undoubtedly a significant contribution. ―
Dr Paul Addison, author of The Burning Blue

About the Author

Emily Mayhew is a military medical historian and was the featured historian on a new documentary on the Guinea Pig Club, which was screened on BBC Four. She was also an adviser on an award-winning Canadian documentary about the club and a consultant on ITV’s award-winning drama Foyle’s War.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter One: Fire

Although the men of the RAF saw their service transformed in the interwar years, their two most deadly enemies never changed: the German Air Force and fire, and for obvious reasons this book focuses on the latter. Fire is the most opportunistic of enemies. It can strike an aircraft at any time, not just in combat, but during take-off and landing, or training or routine non-operational flight. In particular military aircraft, where ammunition so often encounters high octane fuel, make easy, combustible prey.

In any aircraft, fighter or bomber, the fuel tank is the most vulnerable component. This vulnerability had been recognised from the outset of air combat in the Great War ― even the earliest aircraft had been able to absorb a surprisingly large amount of ammunition, incendiary or otherwise, but it only took one hit on their tanks to finish them. Fuel tanks could threaten an aircraft in two possible ways: their contents could explode on contact with incendiary ammunition, tearing apart whatever section of the aircraft they were housed in, and in all probability destroying the entire machine; or tanks punctured by ammunition, incendiary or otherwise, could leak fuel into the aircraft which could combust if struck by bullets during combat, or simply drain away the pilot’s ability to fly back to safety.

One Royal Flying Corps observer wrote of what happened when:

‘… the machine to our left was suddenly hit by a shell, full in the main petrol tank! The thing happened so quickly that for a moment I was unable to realise fully what had happened, and remained horrorstricken, watching our companion machine slowly dissolve in the air astern of us.
A second before I had been sitting looking backwards over our tailplane and regarding what was then evidently a substantial British aeroplane. A fraction of a second later and I saw it hanging in the air before me, its wings floating away from the fuselage whilst a dense black smoke completely obscured the centre section and its occupants. Then, quite slowly, the whole framework twisted sideways, crumpled up, and dived headlong earthwards, wrapped in a sheet of flame.
I sat watching the trail of smoke and fragments which followed it and my companions, down on their two mile journey to the ground and thought many things… it is strange, but at the time I was not so much impressed by the tragic element of the spectacle which I had ju