Je viens de découvrir ce livre :

«Not Really What You'd Call a War”.

Ce sont les souvenirs de guerre d’un jeune officier britannique, navigant sur un navire FNFL, « la boudeuse ». Il n'est disponible malheureusement qu'en anglais.



Une critique bien alléchante :

Not Really What You’d Call a War. By Norman Hampson. Caithness:
Whittles. 2001. x + 132 pp. £14.95 paper. ISBN 1 870325 38 9.
War has always been a powerful stimulus to historical endeavour, both
national and personal. Professor Norman Hampson FBA certainly took
something from his wartime activities as a junior of. cer in the Royal Navy,
although the stimulus was largely negative. As an undergraduate he
secured a wartime commission after brie? y serving on the lower deck.
The new of. cer discovered that the Royal Navy at war was a broad church.
Reserve of. cers were generally well educated and imaginative, but some
of the pre-war regulars were narrow-minded followers of the unthinking
routine and paperwork that could regulate every action. To escape a captain
of this persuasion Hampson transferred to act as liaison of. cer on
the Free French sloop La Moqueuse, despite having little French. In view of
the ship’s name it was hardly surprising that his new shipmates provided a
more amenable atmosphere. Only when the Vichy forces were reintegrated
did he discover that the pre-war French navy could be just as narrow-
minded as the British. However, two years serving with the French
transformed his life. After early demobilization he went back to university,
devoting his career to studying and teaching the history of the French
navy and the revolution. He also married the sister of a French officer.
This is a captivating portrait of the culture clash between a first-year
undergraduate and an ancient and hallowed institution. While there
was a war to fight, and Hampson’s war was active and occasionally
exotic, there were few sightings of the Germans or Italians. By contrast
the real enemy was the unthinking bureaucracy. This is a memoir for
those who like their wars observed with insight and irony.

Source :

Bonne lecture
Laurent