“The Jungle Lawrence”

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 (the latter of whom went on to become Deputy Prime Minister under Margaret Thatcher), and boasted 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 journeyed to such dangerous places as Vietnam and Cambodia in search of stories, and later moved from Town to London’s Sunday Times (pre-Rupert Murdoch of course) and other prestigious journals.

I lost track of Moynahan when I returned to America, and thereafter wondered what had become of him. Now comes word of a book that sounds like a tremendous success, penned by Moynahan himself: Jungle Soldier (Quercus UK) about Freddie Spencer Chapman, one of Britain’s many World War II heroes. As the publisher explains, “In 1941 Chapman was dispatched to Singapore to train British guerrillas for the coming war with Japan. Setting out from Kuala Lumpur on 7 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,” opined The Sunday Times. “An extraordinary life ...,” The Guardian says of Chapman. “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.” 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.”

There appears to be no American publication of Jungle Soldier underway, but perhaps all those glowing reviews will move an enterprising company into action. Meanwhile, you can procure a copy of the British edition through Amazon’s UK division. Good luck with the book, Brian Moynahan, wherever you may be ...