I Was a Stranger

This is the memoir of then Brigadier John Hackett, later General Sir John Hackett, NATO army commander and senior British army general in the sixties. During World War II, Hackett was a very young Brigadier in the British 1st Parachute Division, commanding the 4th Parachute Brigade. In the latter stages of the Battle for Arnhem, he was gravely wounded, and left behind when the British forces retreated because moving him might have been fatal. Instead, he was left in a hospital, where the Germans allowed British medical personnel to look after him without knowing how senior he was. After a week or so, he was spirited out of the hospital, and spent the next five months hiding in German-occupied Holland with various families, but mostly with one, the de Nooij clan. These were relatively well-to-do business owners who had no real business hiding someone like Hackett, but saw it as their Christian duty to do so, and followed that. Eventually he escaped to the south and the safety of the British lines, once he'd recuperated enough. The main difficulty of the book is that for the five months or so of his sojourn in enemy occupied Holland, he essentially didn't do much. So we get an account of the books he read, exercises he did (he chopped and sawed a lot of wood) and the occasional person he or the family met. When he does escape the Germans, the action picks up a bit, but there's much about the journey that exhaustion apparently erased. I enjoyed this book a fair bit, but it does drag some in the middle. Hackett is so very very British it's wonderful (perhaps the best part of the book). He has to have his silver pen and cigarette case to jump into combat, and when some German soldiers want to surrender, he must first find his walking stick! The whole thing is told modestly, with more than a bit of that British pluck which is so famous. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the subject.

While it does sometimes seem to be a bit too strongly infused with the "stiff upper-lip", and trundles a little too steadily to its conclusion, it is a remarkably clear memoir of (then) Brigadier John Hackett's experience in hiding in occupied Holland while recuperating from severe injuries. Without ever becoming overly sentimental, he vividly describes the straightforward determination and astonishing bravery of the family who took him in, and the network of friends who helped them. It does assume a certain amount of previous knowledge about the 1944-1945 campaigns in Holland, but if you watched Band of Brothers, you probably know enough to get by (and you'll have a different account of the rescue of the British forces after 'Market Garden' that program portrayed). Read it, and be reminded that WWII was something that happened to people who were just like us, but held themselves bravely in the face of real danger and fear.

Though I first read this book some twenty years ago it has remained with me ever since as a warm and generous "settlement of account for services rendered" by a wounded escapee who was sheltered and helped to liberty, at great risk to themselves, by a large number of ordinary people. In this it has much in common with that other masterpiece of the genre, Eric Newby's "Love and War in the Apennines", having the same, understated, values of compassion, humour and decency. Hackett's account of his wounding and capture at Arnhem, and of the cheerful valour with which he and his companions faced an uncertain future, is somehow typical of the spirit of all involved in that ultimately failed, but always glorious, venture. His subsequent escape from hospital and the medical care lavished on him, under the most difficult circumstances while in hiding, by courageous Dutch patriots is both exciting and inspiring. Despite severe shortages of medical supplies the treatment Hackett received for a serious intestinal wound was enough to restore him to sufficient fitness to allow an eventual escape back to Allied lines. He paints a moving picture of normal people doing abnormal deeds at great risk to themselves and to those who know and love the best in Dutch society this will come as no surprise. My wife and I remembered this book when we later made a pilgrimage with our family to the Oosterbeek Cemetery and to the areas of combat in and around the town of Arnhem itself and it served as a heartening, and often amusing postscript, to the story of the battle. In short, a delightful and noble memoir of courage, generosity and indomitability - highly recommended.

John Hackett was rescued in more ways than one after the failure of an airborne assault on Arnhem in Holland in September 1944. He spent around four months in the care of the Dutch resistance recovering from his wounds and hiding from the German army. The Dutch people are shown to have remarkable qualities of resilience, friendliness and community and family. Hackett mentions how he chose to abort one escape attempt. If only the same decision making skills had been shown before "Market Garden"? Hackett also makes a brief mention of Montgomery, perhaps in reconciliation.