From the Blitz to the Burmese Jungle and Beyond

A Memoir by Brian Hennessy

One man’s memoir of World War II, which took him from the Blitz to the jungles of Burma, to the devastation of Hiroshima. 

‘I consider myself lucky to have survived the global carnage still myself – a reluctant soldier who had to go to war, who only ever wanted peace for everyone.’ Brian Hennessy

Born in Germany to English parents, Brian Hennessy came from a family who served in the army. He was seventeen years old and living in London when war broke out. He experienced the Blitz first-hand as his role as a volunteer ‘roof-spotter’, trying to establish if the planes flying over were German or English. Brian joined the British Army and upon graduating, he became the youngest armament artificer. What follows is a true adventure story as Brian journeys via South Africa to India and the remote jungles of Burma. Danger was always present, but this is a memoir that reveals Brian’s love of nature and his interactions with the local people – stories that are sometimes humorous, at other times poignant. At the end of the war, he took advantage of the chaos at the time, and he boarded a ship and went to Japan. There he saw first-hand the devastation at Hiroshima.

Brian immigrated to New Zealand after the war and lived there until his death aged ninety-two, but he never forgot his extraordinary war adventures. This is his story, published for the first time.