The Jungle is Neutral

[Pete]

The Jungle is Neutral by F. Spencer Chapman

After the fall of Singapore at the start of WW II Col. Spencer Chapman was one of the "stay behinds".

I'll just type the first paragraph of the Foreword written by Field Marshal Earl Wavell P.C., G.C.B., G.C.S.I., G.C.I.E., C.M.G., M.C.

This is a story of endurance and survival beyond the normal human capacity for survival. The title of Colonel Spencer Chapman's work implies that if human beings have the fortitude to bear the malevolence and hazards of the jungle and the resources to use what benefits it produces, it has no particular objection to their living in it. But the neutrality of the Malayan jungle, as Colonel Spencer Chapman warns us, is armed. He himself was on one occasion dangerously ill for two months on end, including a period of unconsciousness for seventeen days; he suffered at various times from black-water fever, pneumonia, and tick-typhus, as alternatives or additions to almost chronic malaria; it took him once twelve days' hard marching to cover ten miles through the jungle; and he was marching barefooted six days without food on another occasion. Armed neutrality indeed! One can hardly help sympathizing with the six British soldiers who in such conditions died, "not of any specific disease, but because they lacked the right mental attitude".


The book should be a good read for any SF type as it dabbles in many areas as he covers his arrival in Malayan area, the start of the war, high level plans and no plans, and how he ended up behind the lines.

The book is fairly grim as it covers the lack of will of the other six and how they faded away. He is a little strong on the "average British soldier vs the superior officer".

It boils down to "You have to have your head screwed on right" if you want to survive.

Pete