‘The Last Enemy’ by Richard Hillary
Originally published in June 1942. “Was immediately successful”.Hillary is an interesting character. He was an Oxford rower who, as part of the University Air Squadron, joined the RAF at the outbreak of war. Previously he had travelled Europe and was fluent in both French and German. His book is a sort of autobiographical novel, which largely sticks to the facts but occasionally wonders off into the realm of fantasy when he is desperate to make a point. Or at least, so says the introduction written by Sebastian Faulks.
It is a stunningly good read….
posted by Benjamin Nakizo at 6:20 PM
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It begins with is early days at Oxford and the people he met there, many of who joined the RAF with him and who reoccur throughout. It covers his basic training and the excitement when he and his fellow pilots are transferred to fighter command after the fall of France. It speaks of his initial excitement but then near apathy of his first combat flight and his first kill.
It is very much a tale based entirely on the effects of war on the individual’s character, especially its effect on the young and ambitious group of Oxford students with whom Hillary spent most of his time. There are some great conversations he has with Oxford friends about their position in the build up to the war and what it is they fight for – or in the case of David, conscientiously object. This all sits in amongst his own monologue on his motives for going to war so enthusiastically. Hillary believes that war is a great experience for developing ones sense of self. His decision to become a fighter pilot was based largely on his admiration for a form of combat he believed to be ‘exciting’ and ‘individual’. The one on one combat of dog fights when one either killed or was killed appealed to Hillary because it seemed to him to offer the surest way to test himself against the world.
For example:
“The pilot is a race of men who since time immemorial have been inarticulate; who, through their daily contact with death, have realised, often enough unconsciously, certain fundamental things. It is only in the air that the pilot can grasp that feeling, that flash of knowledge, of insight, that matures him beyond his years; only in the air that he knows suddenly he is a man in a world of men”
Aside from fascinating descriptions of the actual fighting in the Battle of Britain, one of which includes Hillary tuning into the German fighters radio frequency and trading insults with them shortly before trading bullets. Yet the bulk is concerned with this battle of ideas. Two opinions are explored and tested against his in detail. One is that of David, the conscientious objector who’s main objection seemed to be that this war was based on the same class system and imperial desires as the first. Later when Hillary meets him when the war is in full swing David has become a shadow of his former self, suffering from depression and self-doubt as his pacifist world views have evidently crumbled around him as the scale and character of the Nazi advance becomes apparent. He tells Hillary he is thinking of signing up and in effect Hillary as the author presents his pacifist worldviews as having been totally discredited and unsupportable, despite admitting his reluctant admiration for someone who clings to their ideals despite the true nature of events.
Second is the Christian ideals of his fellow pilot Peter Pease and later, those of Peter’s wife who shares them. Peter is from a landowning family, the old Tory elite. A class of people Hillary distrusts and makes no secret of it. It was this that part impelled him to keep on pushing Peter to reveal his thoughts on the whole war. After a prolonged barrage of provocative inquisition Peter finally comes out with two very impressive pieces. Firstly he describes the Nazi threat and then secondly he responds to Hillary’s accusation that through economics, and not religion can man find happiness. Observe:
“I would say that I was fighting the war to rid the world of fear – of the fear of fear is perhaps what I mean. If the Germans win this war, nobody except little Hitlers will dare do anything. England will be run as if it were a concentration camp, or a best a factory. All courage will die out of the world – the courage to love, to create, to take risks, whether physical or intellectual or moral. Men will hesitate to carry out the promptings of the heart or the brain because, having acted, they will live in fear that their action may be discovered and themselves cruelly punished. Thus all love, all spontaneity, will die out of the world. Emotion will have atrophied. Thought will have petrified. The oxygen breathed by the soul, so to speak, will vanish, and mankind will wither”.
Which is a passage I would be most proud of myself.
Secondly his defence of Christianity against the benefits of economics: “I don’t know much about either religion or economics, but I know this. Religious persecution has been periodic, but economic persecution has been constant, uninterrupted, never-ending. There’s no evidence in history of men being better disposed towards one another because of economics, but there is some evidence in history of men being better disposed towards one another because of economics, but there is some evidence of their being so through religion”.
I passionate statement. Horribly incorrect of course. As far as I can see economic growth makes people richer and removes the material conflicts between people and thus reduces tensions. Religion is at its very core all about dividing people against one another in order that they might be better controlled. But that is just me of course.
Anyway. Christianity aside the argument basically revolves around Hillary’s self centred reasons for fighting, e.g. personal betterment and those of men like Pease who see it as a communal struggle to preserve humanity against those of an evil moral disposition.
The finale of this whole debate comes in the final chapter when Hillary finally realises this his world views are in fact wrong and that the war is indeed about more than just his own personal adventure. Hillary in essence comes to believe in humanity and that certain ideals and rights were worthy of sacrifice. He reconciles the deaths of his comrades in these terms, they died fighting for a worthy cause. A cause for which Hillary (and importantly also the reader) suddenly has renewed vigour.
Included amongst all this are a couple of excellent chapters that focus on his time spent in hospital being treated for burns that took him months to heal from and left him permanently disfigured.
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