Overview

The Second World War produced a unique band of heroes: a small international group of men that were uniquely celebrated and lauded for their remarkable courage. The group was the so-called Guinea Pig Club, the band of airmen who crawled from burning aircraft but suffered the worst imaginable burns and crash injuries. The 647 survivors included British, Canadian, Czech and Polish airmen. Before the war, no one had anticipated airmen would survive mid-air fires. Consequently, provision for their care was virtually non-existant. Their rehabilitation was placed in the hands of one plastic surgeon named Archibald McIndoe at a hospital in East Grinsted, in the south of England. McIndoe quickly constructed a medical infrastructure from scratch. After arguing with his superiors, he set up a revolutionary new treatment regime. Uniquely concerned with the social environment, or 'holistic care', McIndoe also enlisted the help of the local civilian population. He rightly secured his patients a place in society as Allied war heroes. The Canadian government was so impressed with his work that it funded a Canadian Wing at the hospital. For the first time official records have been used to fully explain how the patients were injured, treated, then paraded as heroes. Using gripping first-hand accounts, Emily Mayhew paints a genuinely-moving picture illustrating incredible courage and triumph.

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9781853676109

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It has been described as the most exclusive Club in the world, but the entrance fee is something most men would not care to pay and the conditions of membership are arduous in the extreme Sir Archibald McIndoe

"""It has been described as the most exclusive Club in the world, but the entrance fee is something most men would not care to pay and the conditions of membership are arduous in the extreme Sir Archibald McIndoe"""

When the glory of 'chivalrous' air combat fades, the casualties are left behind. Mayhew's disturbing yet ultimately inspiring tale largely takes us away from these battles in the sky, and into the wards of the East Grinstead 'Guinea pig' Ward III of the Queen Victoria Hospital, which, under the watch of consultant plastic surgeon Archibald McIndoe, built from scratch under the aegis of the RAF a world class medical facility for the treating of the terribly burned British airmen of the Second World War. Mayhew traces the beginnings of the air war and the enormous technical and physical challenges it posed for the aircrew and those that treated them. The aircraft of this period were dangerously laden with a combination of exposed and large fuel tanks, yet fragile airframes and exposed cockpits (in the case of fighters). Treatment for this depth and regularity of burns was primitive when the war began. As casualty rates soared in 1940, alongside frantic efforts by the RAF to deal with the risk of aircraft fire came the struggle, equally as difficult yet seen by McIndoe as equally necessary, to reconstruct those who fell victim. The RAF's unique 'Guinea Pig Club' was born, its aim not only to use the best surgical methods to rebuild its patients, but to involve the local population as much as possible to complete the healing process, to treat the patients as honoured heroes who should not feel excluded by any disfigurement. Supported by their hospital staff, government, media, and most importantly by the people around them, who welcomed them into their homes, cafes, theatres and cinemas, the airmen were spiritually as well as physically 'reconstructed.' At once a biography of an extraordinary man, a wider history of the new kind of air warrior the twentieth century produced, and a study of the deep intertwining between the home front and RAF at war, this is a fascinating and moving read of how a time of great suffering can produce one of the great experiments in healing a human being. (Kirkus UK)

Author Information

Emily Mayhew is the narrator of a forthcoming BBC documentary on the Guinea Pig Club and was a key advisor on an award-winning Canadian documentary which will be screened on satellite TV.

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