The Enemy at Home

After the funeral, as Jack Brown stood by the grave of his father, Bill, his eyes displayed different feelings, true feelings, of anger and disgust towards his father as he muttered, “Rot in hell you old bastard.”

Jack couldn’t forgive his father for the misery he had caused him and his friend, Harold, for their arrest as deserters during World War One, when he would have known full well the penalty for desertion was the firing squad. The same went for the death of their mothers, and his sister’s escape to Canada.

Will his feelings ever get resolved?

Following a long career in the public sector and higher education, David Johnson has had two books published on WWI. The first, The Man Who Didn’t Shoot Hitler, is a biography of Private Henry Tandey who was the most decorated private soldier to survive the war. He has been wrongly identified as the soldier who spared Hitler’s life in September 1918. The second book, Executed at Dawn: British Firing Squads on the Western Front 1914-18, discusses how the executions were organised, the abolition of the death penalty in the military and the Shot at Dawn Campaign. This book tells the story in more detail of the Shot at Dawn Campaign to obtain pardons for 306 soldiers who were executed and the establishment’s efforts to thwart it.

David lives in Warwickshire with his partner.

Customer Reviews

4.0

1 reviews

Kevin Hand

This is a pacy family saga where much of the action occurs to the background of World War 1. The Browns are a family with secrets and unresolved issues that become apparent as the young Jack and Sis grow up and realise the monster their father has always been. There are twists in the plot to keep the narrative flowing and Johnson allows his characters to develop and deepen with the passage of the years.There are some striking descriptions of warfare in the trenches and of love and fresh challenges in a land now fit for heroes.

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Kevin Hand

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