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From the City, from the Plough
The story of soldiers of the Fifth Battalion, the Wessex Regiment, in the run up to and aftermath of D-Day. Although fictional, it comes directly out of the author's own experience and is regarded as one of the most accurate and unsentimental portrayals of the ordinary soldier's life anywhere in fiction. First published in 1948, there have been enthusiastic endorsements from soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, confirming Baron's uncanny knack of capturing the soldier's experience.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 1948
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718 people want to read
About the author
Alexander Baron
104 books36 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Alexander Baron (4 December 1917 – 6 December 1999) was a British author and screenwriter. He is best known for his highly acclaimed novel about D-Day entitled From the City from the Plough (1948) and his London novel The Lowlife (1963). His father was Barnet Bernstein, a Polish-Jewish immigrant to Britain who settled in the East End of London in 1908 and later worked as a furrier. Alexander Baron was born in Maidenhead and raised in the Hackney district of London. He attended Hackney Downs School. During the 1930s, with his schoolfriend Ted Willis, Baron was a leading activist and organiser of the Labour League of Youth (at that time aligned with the Communist Party), campaigning against the fascists in the streets of the East End. Baron became increasingly disillusioned with far left politics as he spoke to International Brigade fighters returning from the Spanish Civil War, and finally broke with the communists after the Hitler–Stalin Pact of August 1939.
Baron served in the Pioneer Corps of the British Army during World War II, experiencing fierce fighting in the Italian campaign, Normandy and in Northern France and Belgium. As a sapper, he was among the first Allied troops to be landed in Sicily, Italy and on D-Day. He used his wartime experiences as the basis for his three best-selling war novels. After the war he became assistant editor of Tribune before publishing his first novel From the City from the Plough (1948). At this time, at the behest of his publisher Jonathan Cape, he also changed his name from Bernstein to Baron.
Baron's personal papers are held in the archives of the University of Reading. His wartime letters and unpublished memoirs were used by the historian Sean Longden for his book To the Victor the Spoils, a social history of the British Army between D Day and VE Day.[3] Baron has also been the subject of essays by Iain Sinclair and Ken Worpole.
As well as continuing to write novels, in the 1950s Baron wrote screenplays for Hollywood, and by the 1960s he had become a regular writer on BBC's Play for Today, for drama serials like Poldark and A Horseman Riding By, and BBC classic adaptions including Jane Eyre, Sense And Sensibility, and Oliver Twist.
Alexander Baron (4 December 1917 – 6 December 1999) was a British author and screenwriter. He is best known for his highly acclaimed novel about D-Day entitled From the City from the Plough (1948) and his London novel The Lowlife (1963). His father was Barnet Bernstein, a Polish-Jewish immigrant to Britain who settled in the East End of London in 1908 and later worked as a furrier. Alexander Baron was born in Maidenhead and raised in the Hackney district of London. He attended Hackney Downs School. During the 1930s, with his schoolfriend Ted Willis, Baron was a leading activist and organiser of the Labour League of Youth (at that time aligned with the Communist Party), campaigning against the fascists in the streets of the East End. Baron became increasingly disillusioned with far left politics as he spoke to International Brigade fighters returning from the Spanish Civil War, and finally broke with the communists after the Hitler–Stalin Pact of August 1939.
Baron served in the Pioneer Corps of the British Army during World War II, experiencing fierce fighting in the Italian campaign, Normandy and in Northern France and Belgium. As a sapper, he was among the first Allied troops to be landed in Sicily, Italy and on D-Day. He used his wartime experiences as the basis for his three best-selling war novels. After the war he became assistant editor of Tribune before publishing his first novel From the City from the Plough (1948). At this time, at the behest of his publisher Jonathan Cape, he also changed his name from Bernstein to Baron.
Baron's personal papers are held in the archives of the University of Reading. His wartime letters and unpublished memoirs were used by the historian Sean Longden for his book To the Victor the Spoils, a social history of the British Army between D Day and VE Day.[3] Baron has also been the subject of essays by Iain Sinclair and Ken Worpole.
As well as continuing to write novels, in the 1950s Baron wrote screenplays for Hollywood, and by the 1960s he had become a regular writer on BBC's Play for Today, for drama serials like Poldark and A Horseman Riding By, and BBC classic adaptions including Jane Eyre, Sense And Sensibility, and Oliver Twist.
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January 25, 2021
This is a forgotten war novel with a rather naff title. Published in 1948, it sold over a million copies and was hailed as a masterpiece on both sides of the Atlantic. It is the story of the 5th battalion, the Wessex regiment (based on the actual 5th Wiltshire regiment), which took men from rural Somerset and the east end of London (hence the title).
The novel follows the men of the fifth from the waiting and preparation for D-Day, across the channel and into France, culminating in the taking of a hill called Pincon. Baron had been in the Young Communist League in the 30s and had been active in the East End opposing Mosley’s Blackshirts. He broke with the communists following Hitler’s pact with Stalin, but remained left wing. Baron wrote from his own experience. He was a sapper in the Pioneer Corps (being too short-sighted to be trusted with a rifle). The Sappers were first on the beaches on D-Day where they cleared barbed wire and dug up mines to allow the main force through. He never rose above the rank of corporal and one of the characters is based on him.
I think this is one of the best war novels I have read; better than For Whom the Bell Tolls and A Farewell to Arms (maybe not as well written). At the time it was compared favourably with All Quiet on the Western Front. So why has it been forgotten? Much of the history of the Second World War in literature and film is about the heroic; great escapes, the few, tales of bravery and great victories. This book is not like that, nor is it the satire of Catch 22 and its ilk.
It is the simply told story of how ordinary men reacted to war and what they felt.. His characters are balanced, not all the officers are fools and tyrants and the men are not working class heroes. Those who act with heroism are not predictable; sometimes they are the characters who are the least likeable. There is humour and humanity, but the messiness and brutality of war is starkly portrayed. Baron uses the contrast with the natural landscape in June and July to great effect and some of the passages are heart wrenching. Underlying it all is a deep fury and the last chapter ranks as one of the most powerful pieces of writing I have come across.
The novel follows the men of the fifth from the waiting and preparation for D-Day, across the channel and into France, culminating in the taking of a hill called Pincon. Baron had been in the Young Communist League in the 30s and had been active in the East End opposing Mosley’s Blackshirts. He broke with the communists following Hitler’s pact with Stalin, but remained left wing. Baron wrote from his own experience. He was a sapper in the Pioneer Corps (being too short-sighted to be trusted with a rifle). The Sappers were first on the beaches on D-Day where they cleared barbed wire and dug up mines to allow the main force through. He never rose above the rank of corporal and one of the characters is based on him.
I think this is one of the best war novels I have read; better than For Whom the Bell Tolls and A Farewell to Arms (maybe not as well written). At the time it was compared favourably with All Quiet on the Western Front. So why has it been forgotten? Much of the history of the Second World War in literature and film is about the heroic; great escapes, the few, tales of bravery and great victories. This book is not like that, nor is it the satire of Catch 22 and its ilk.
It is the simply told story of how ordinary men reacted to war and what they felt.. His characters are balanced, not all the officers are fools and tyrants and the men are not working class heroes. Those who act with heroism are not predictable; sometimes they are the characters who are the least likeable. There is humour and humanity, but the messiness and brutality of war is starkly portrayed. Baron uses the contrast with the natural landscape in June and July to great effect and some of the passages are heart wrenching. Underlying it all is a deep fury and the last chapter ranks as one of the most powerful pieces of writing I have come across.
February 25, 2019
A Second World War and English equivalent to “All Quiet on the Western Front” - widely heralded on its publication in 1948 as an authentic take in the war and welcome anecdote to the Commando/special forces and prison-camp escape novels already dominating the war publishing industry (astonishing that so little has changed), this quietly powerful novel deserves to be much better known.
I particularly found interesting the wartime role of the Home battalions.
I particularly found interesting the wartime role of the Home battalions.
January 1, 2025
A hard and rough book, about war, loyalty and friendship.
Some parts look like a true documentary, mere facts and numbers, with more questions than answers. Interesting, many English people have died for the sake of Europe (not to mention democracy), and their descendants show us the Brexit...
Some parts look like a true documentary, mere facts and numbers, with more questions than answers. Interesting, many English people have died for the sake of Europe (not to mention democracy), and their descendants show us the Brexit...
July 15, 2015
If you've read "From Here to Eternity" (1951) - or seen the later film version - seen "The Longest Day" (1962), "Band of Brothers" (2001) or "Saving Private Ryan" (1998) - or read the other books by Stephen Ambrose, Cornelius Ryan and a host of others, then some of the content of this book will at least be familiar to you in a historical context. It has strong elements of "Platoon", "Hamburger Hill" and many other late 20th century works depicting man at war.
What may surprise you when reading this book is that it actually pre-dates all these other works - it was written in 1948 - and you can't help but think that it must have inspired at least some elements of these later "definitive" works. Because this little book tops them all.
It's the semi fictitious tale of the semi fictitious 5th Battalion of the Wessex Regiment of the events leading up to and following D Day in June 1944. The author actually witnessed most of the events depicted in the book, and although most of them have minor details changed, the gist of every bit of this book is based on the harsh realities that the author himself experienced in France in 1944.
It almost has a feel of a dozen different peoples' diaries about it - the scene and the narrative viewpoint jump quite dramatically from paragraph to paragraph at times, and it takes the reader a while to adjust to the frenetic pace of change.
What this sort of style of presentation allows though are a series of vignettes - sometimes quite leisurely and relaxed, and at other times taut, fleeting and highly impactful. As a result, it takes a while to recognize all the various characters in the book, and you find yourself re-reading earlier bits all the time to try and see if there is continuity between scenes. There isn't always - but this doesn't detract from the piece at all. Through all the trials and tribulations of the ensemble leading up to June 6th, and the attritional horrors they suffer after that fateful date, the action is unrelenting, and when you finish this short book you almost feel as if you've been dragged through the Normandy hedges yourself. It's a very powerful book.
What may surprise you when reading this book is that it actually pre-dates all these other works - it was written in 1948 - and you can't help but think that it must have inspired at least some elements of these later "definitive" works. Because this little book tops them all.
It's the semi fictitious tale of the semi fictitious 5th Battalion of the Wessex Regiment of the events leading up to and following D Day in June 1944. The author actually witnessed most of the events depicted in the book, and although most of them have minor details changed, the gist of every bit of this book is based on the harsh realities that the author himself experienced in France in 1944.
It almost has a feel of a dozen different peoples' diaries about it - the scene and the narrative viewpoint jump quite dramatically from paragraph to paragraph at times, and it takes the reader a while to adjust to the frenetic pace of change.
What this sort of style of presentation allows though are a series of vignettes - sometimes quite leisurely and relaxed, and at other times taut, fleeting and highly impactful. As a result, it takes a while to recognize all the various characters in the book, and you find yourself re-reading earlier bits all the time to try and see if there is continuity between scenes. There isn't always - but this doesn't detract from the piece at all. Through all the trials and tribulations of the ensemble leading up to June 6th, and the attritional horrors they suffer after that fateful date, the action is unrelenting, and when you finish this short book you almost feel as if you've been dragged through the Normandy hedges yourself. It's a very powerful book.
November 17, 2020
This is a story of ordinary men in a humble British battalion, 5th battalion Wessex Regiment, during WWII.
Some are wily resourceful city boys, some are robust, dependable country men, some are hardened veterans brought in to stiffen the green battalion.
The book flow sedately in the beginning, bringing me along and let me see with my own eyes, their constant trainings, camp life and escapades. I can also feel their boredom and impatience to close in with the enemy and get on with their life.
The pace quicken after 5th battalion landed in Normandy. Even though it lacks bloods and gores and vivid explosions as depicted in modern war films, I can still feel the exhaustions and fears of a battlefield.
I bit my lips as I read the successive chain of command steeled their hearts and gave the orders they know they are sending their men to their dooms.
And the final chapter broke my heart into pieces.
Some are wily resourceful city boys, some are robust, dependable country men, some are hardened veterans brought in to stiffen the green battalion.
The book flow sedately in the beginning, bringing me along and let me see with my own eyes, their constant trainings, camp life and escapades. I can also feel their boredom and impatience to close in with the enemy and get on with their life.
The pace quicken after 5th battalion landed in Normandy. Even though it lacks bloods and gores and vivid explosions as depicted in modern war films, I can still feel the exhaustions and fears of a battlefield.
I bit my lips as I read the successive chain of command steeled their hearts and gave the orders they know they are sending their men to their dooms.
And the final chapter broke my heart into pieces.
January 22, 2022
A truly wonderful and brilliant book.
Loosely based on the author's own experiences in the second world war it tells the story of a regular British infantry battalion full of ordinary men, no better or worse than any man you'd meet on the street, who are asked to endure the almost unendurable.
I'd go so far as to say this is easily in the top five best war novel i've ever read.
This book is published as part of the Imperial War Museum Wartime Classics series, i'm going to be getting the other books in the series, if they are even half as good as this they'll be worth reading.
Loosely based on the author's own experiences in the second world war it tells the story of a regular British infantry battalion full of ordinary men, no better or worse than any man you'd meet on the street, who are asked to endure the almost unendurable.
I'd go so far as to say this is easily in the top five best war novel i've ever read.
This book is published as part of the Imperial War Museum Wartime Classics series, i'm going to be getting the other books in the series, if they are even half as good as this they'll be worth reading.
June 14, 2020
Quite simply one of the best war novels I have ever read . Every character, every scene rings true. There are no special forces or submarines or tales of derring-do here , just very ordinary men doing an awful job. And an ordinary British infantry battalion, whose character and characters we have both come to know and care about, being cut to pieces in the bocage of Normandy .
September 10, 2016
This out-of-print masterpiece is one of the best "average soldier" novels I've ever read.
Alexander Baron served as an infantryman in World War II, and his book chronicles a division that was made up of men from London and Manchester, combined with farm boys from Wessex. About two thirds of the novel takes place in their training camp sitting above the Atlantic, as the unit prepares for D Day. There we get to know many of the men -- Charlie, the wily London veteran who seems to desert the army but then comes sauntering back in just before the invasion; Lt. Col. Pothecary, the gruff and kindly commander, who is paired with the aristocratic, sardonic Major Dawson; the farm lads, including one young man who is thrilled to go to a local farm and work all evening after an entire day of training, just to learn new scientific agriculture methods from the owner; the brutal Major Maddison, a closeted taskmaster who puts others in danger along with himself; Alfie Bradley, pathologically shy, who finally finds someone to love right before shipping out; and dozens of others.
The concise novel then takes you with the unit through the Normandy Beach landing and into the increasingly heinous fighting in the woodlands and fields of France. As the push toward Germany progresses, you get a real sense of the terror and boredom for everyday soldiers, digging slit trenches to ride out heavy cannon and airplane bombardments, fighting against increasingly desperate German snipers in small, shattered villages, and finally assaulting a hilltop that proves as deadly as it is questionable as a military objective.
We sometimes forget how devastating World War II fighting could be. A historian's afternote says the unit this novel was based on started out with about 480 soldiers on D Day, and by the time their deadly assault on Mt. Pincon was finished a couple months later, there were 63 survivors.
In straightforward, unadorned language, Baron brings to life the preparation, the terror and the bone-crushing weariness of war. An honest and profound novel.
Alexander Baron served as an infantryman in World War II, and his book chronicles a division that was made up of men from London and Manchester, combined with farm boys from Wessex. About two thirds of the novel takes place in their training camp sitting above the Atlantic, as the unit prepares for D Day. There we get to know many of the men -- Charlie, the wily London veteran who seems to desert the army but then comes sauntering back in just before the invasion; Lt. Col. Pothecary, the gruff and kindly commander, who is paired with the aristocratic, sardonic Major Dawson; the farm lads, including one young man who is thrilled to go to a local farm and work all evening after an entire day of training, just to learn new scientific agriculture methods from the owner; the brutal Major Maddison, a closeted taskmaster who puts others in danger along with himself; Alfie Bradley, pathologically shy, who finally finds someone to love right before shipping out; and dozens of others.
The concise novel then takes you with the unit through the Normandy Beach landing and into the increasingly heinous fighting in the woodlands and fields of France. As the push toward Germany progresses, you get a real sense of the terror and boredom for everyday soldiers, digging slit trenches to ride out heavy cannon and airplane bombardments, fighting against increasingly desperate German snipers in small, shattered villages, and finally assaulting a hilltop that proves as deadly as it is questionable as a military objective.
We sometimes forget how devastating World War II fighting could be. A historian's afternote says the unit this novel was based on started out with about 480 soldiers on D Day, and by the time their deadly assault on Mt. Pincon was finished a couple months later, there were 63 survivors.
In straightforward, unadorned language, Baron brings to life the preparation, the terror and the bone-crushing weariness of war. An honest and profound novel.
September 2, 2019
https://orlando-books.blog/
This review relates to From The City, From The Plough by Alexander Baron.
This is a fictional tale of the D-Day landings, but based on Alexander Baron’s own experiences.
It tells of the Fifth Battalion, Wessex regiment, from the perspectives of both the officers and the soldiers. These men are from different backgrounds, city dwellers and farmers and everything in between.
There are men who relish the thought of war and those who just want it all over, so they can return to a ‘normal’ life…..their wives and family.
From the constant training before being posted to the extremes of boredom and fear, fatigue and death during the many, many battles. The day to day bravery of these men cannot be underestimated what they did, saw and experienced is something so difficult to imagine these days.
The characters are so well described, from mad Major Maddison to Tom Smith you will be emotionally attached to these men (some more than others though) and willing them to survive the horrors of war……
I’ve not read anything that captures the human effects of war since I read Dispatches by Michael Herr. An absolute masterpiece.
Thank you to Anne Cater and Random Things Tours for the opportunity to participate in this blog tour and for the promotional materials and a free copy of the book. This is my honest, unbiased review.
This review relates to From The City, From The Plough by Alexander Baron.
This is a fictional tale of the D-Day landings, but based on Alexander Baron’s own experiences.
It tells of the Fifth Battalion, Wessex regiment, from the perspectives of both the officers and the soldiers. These men are from different backgrounds, city dwellers and farmers and everything in between.
There are men who relish the thought of war and those who just want it all over, so they can return to a ‘normal’ life…..their wives and family.
From the constant training before being posted to the extremes of boredom and fear, fatigue and death during the many, many battles. The day to day bravery of these men cannot be underestimated what they did, saw and experienced is something so difficult to imagine these days.
The characters are so well described, from mad Major Maddison to Tom Smith you will be emotionally attached to these men (some more than others though) and willing them to survive the horrors of war……
I’ve not read anything that captures the human effects of war since I read Dispatches by Michael Herr. An absolute masterpiece.
Thank you to Anne Cater and Random Things Tours for the opportunity to participate in this blog tour and for the promotional materials and a free copy of the book. This is my honest, unbiased review.
September 29, 2019
This 1948 best seller echoes Alexander Baron’s own military career as it follows a battalion of a fictional infantry brigade as they prepare for – and then take part in – D Day in the summer of 1944.
The Fifth Wessex is, as the book’s title suggests, made up of a mixture of clumsy red-cheeked farm boys from the chalk uplands, well-read introverts who keep themselves to themselves, streetwise chancers and bewildered lads who are virgins in both bedroom and battlefield. They could be soldiers from earlier wars, and their ancestors might have known Agincourt, Marston Moor, Malplaquet, Talavera, Spion Kop and Arras.
Baron has no time for the thinly veiled homo-eroticism of some of the Great War writers. His men can be uncouth, foul-mouthed, brutalised by their social background, yet given to moments of great compassion and charity.
The British officer class have been long the object of scorn in both poetry and prose, but Baron deals with them in a largely sympathetic way. Those leading the Fifth on the ground are decent fellows; people who are only too aware of the frequently uneven struggle between shards of steel and the breasts of brave men. Even the Brigadier, whose plans prove so costly, is well aware of what he asks. He is, however, resolute in the way he shuts down his personal qualms in order to maintain the integrity of the battle plan. The one exception is the odious Major Maddison, a cold and sexually troubled narcissist whose demise is as satisfying as it is inevitable.
It is worth comparing From The City, From The Plough to another deeply moving novel of men at war, Covenant With Death, (1961) by John Harris. Both deal at length with preparation for an assault; both conclude with the devastating outcome. In Harris’s book the ‘band of brothers’ is a thinly fictionalised Pals Battalion from a northern city. Their Gehenna is the morning of July 1st 1916 and if it is just as brutal as the fate of the Fifth Wessex, it is perhaps more shocking for its suddenness. Harris concludes his book with the words;
“Two years in the making. Ten minutes in the destroying. That was our story.”
Baron writes lyrically about the midsummer grace of the French countryside, its orchards and abundance of wild flowers, some of which grace the helmets and tunics of the passing soldiers, their fragility which will contrast cruelly with the total vulnerability of the crumpled and shattered bodies of the men who wore them. For the driven and exhausted men of the Fifth Wessex, unlike their fathers before them, there is always a new unspoiled hillside, a grove of trees untouched by shellfire, a fresh sunken lane lined with roses and willow herb. For the war in Normandy is a war of movement. A field reeking with the blood of dead horses and cattle is soon left behind, as the Brigadier stabs his finger at the map and finds another bridge, another crossroads and another copse that must be taken.
The heroes in From The City, From The Plough come in all shapes and sizes, but there are no winners. Let Alexander Baron (right) have the last word.
“Among the rubble, beneath the smoking ruins, the dead of the Fifth Battalion sprawled around the guns they had silenced; dusty, crumpled and utterly without dignity; a pair of boots protruding from a roadside ditch; a body blackened and bent like a chicken burnt in the stove; a face pressed into the dirt; a hand reaching up out of a mass of brick and timbers; a rump thrust ludicrously towards the sky. The living lay among them, speechless, exhausted, beyond grief or triumph, drawing at broken cigarettes and watching with sunken eyes the tanks go by.”
The Fifth Wessex is, as the book’s title suggests, made up of a mixture of clumsy red-cheeked farm boys from the chalk uplands, well-read introverts who keep themselves to themselves, streetwise chancers and bewildered lads who are virgins in both bedroom and battlefield. They could be soldiers from earlier wars, and their ancestors might have known Agincourt, Marston Moor, Malplaquet, Talavera, Spion Kop and Arras.
Baron has no time for the thinly veiled homo-eroticism of some of the Great War writers. His men can be uncouth, foul-mouthed, brutalised by their social background, yet given to moments of great compassion and charity.
The British officer class have been long the object of scorn in both poetry and prose, but Baron deals with them in a largely sympathetic way. Those leading the Fifth on the ground are decent fellows; people who are only too aware of the frequently uneven struggle between shards of steel and the breasts of brave men. Even the Brigadier, whose plans prove so costly, is well aware of what he asks. He is, however, resolute in the way he shuts down his personal qualms in order to maintain the integrity of the battle plan. The one exception is the odious Major Maddison, a cold and sexually troubled narcissist whose demise is as satisfying as it is inevitable.
It is worth comparing From The City, From The Plough to another deeply moving novel of men at war, Covenant With Death, (1961) by John Harris. Both deal at length with preparation for an assault; both conclude with the devastating outcome. In Harris’s book the ‘band of brothers’ is a thinly fictionalised Pals Battalion from a northern city. Their Gehenna is the morning of July 1st 1916 and if it is just as brutal as the fate of the Fifth Wessex, it is perhaps more shocking for its suddenness. Harris concludes his book with the words;
“Two years in the making. Ten minutes in the destroying. That was our story.”
Baron writes lyrically about the midsummer grace of the French countryside, its orchards and abundance of wild flowers, some of which grace the helmets and tunics of the passing soldiers, their fragility which will contrast cruelly with the total vulnerability of the crumpled and shattered bodies of the men who wore them. For the driven and exhausted men of the Fifth Wessex, unlike their fathers before them, there is always a new unspoiled hillside, a grove of trees untouched by shellfire, a fresh sunken lane lined with roses and willow herb. For the war in Normandy is a war of movement. A field reeking with the blood of dead horses and cattle is soon left behind, as the Brigadier stabs his finger at the map and finds another bridge, another crossroads and another copse that must be taken.
The heroes in From The City, From The Plough come in all shapes and sizes, but there are no winners. Let Alexander Baron (right) have the last word.
“Among the rubble, beneath the smoking ruins, the dead of the Fifth Battalion sprawled around the guns they had silenced; dusty, crumpled and utterly without dignity; a pair of boots protruding from a roadside ditch; a body blackened and bent like a chicken burnt in the stove; a face pressed into the dirt; a hand reaching up out of a mass of brick and timbers; a rump thrust ludicrously towards the sky. The living lay among them, speechless, exhausted, beyond grief or triumph, drawing at broken cigarettes and watching with sunken eyes the tanks go by.”
September 10, 2019
This is an authentic reading experience that recalls the fate of a battalion of men in a war. The fictional Fifth Battalion, Wessex Regiment is a remarkable one; at a significant point in the Second World War this large group of men is drawn together from several groups. Those “from the plough”, from the farming communities, want nothing more than to help at local farms while the Battalion waits to go into action, then to ultimately return to their fields. There is a group of men who rule the gambling, mainly on the dog tracks, and have worked out how to get anything they want, food, leave and all the other perks which make army life bearable. There is another group of war hardened veterans brought in, with all the cynicism of experience in another theatre of war. The picture of this ill assorted group of men, idle in the sunshine of early summer 1944, or training hard for unknown challenges, shows the effects of people being cut off from their homes and loved ones, and getting on as best they may. Some behave well, some welcome others, while there are also incidents of violence and desperation. Then there is movement, a plunging towards an attack, but it is also a time of gradual and unexplained delays, routes to invasion which seem obscure, a secrecy and misinformation. When Normandy is reached, the description of fighting is intense, unsparing and completely authentic. This is not the muddy trenches of the First World War, this is the mobile , bewildering and no holds barred movement of men through the beaches, fields and houses of real people. As someone with a family history of such experiences, the atmosphere of improvised attack were familiar to me; the little events of humour and relief consistent with the untold stories of danger and even death.
This novel is so readable because it does not record the huge numbers of men and weapons transported, it creates and maintains characters who experience the challenges of preparation, transport and battle. This author records his eyewitness accounts of everything through the experience of Alfie Bradley, who experiences first love. A Private Smith who wants to come back to a farming job. Charlie Venable, who follows his own rules and finds his own motives to fight on his terms. The officers, reading, discussing training, torn by their own challenges. This is not just an action novel of battle, this novel is a series of portraits of real people enduring and experiencing an unique set of circumstances.
This book is one of a set of four books written in the Second World War which shows the experience of so many. Their immediacy and personal impact is ensured by their writing from the midst of experience rather than the long view of memory. I felt this book provided a significant change to my perspective of what the invasion of D Day was actually like, and did so through personal accounts lightly fictionalised for powerful effect. I was so pleased to have the opportunity to read and review this novel. I recommend it for anyone who wants an accurate, moving and sometimes funny book, full of insight into people preparing for battle and the truth of war. An amazing reading experience.
This novel is so readable because it does not record the huge numbers of men and weapons transported, it creates and maintains characters who experience the challenges of preparation, transport and battle. This author records his eyewitness accounts of everything through the experience of Alfie Bradley, who experiences first love. A Private Smith who wants to come back to a farming job. Charlie Venable, who follows his own rules and finds his own motives to fight on his terms. The officers, reading, discussing training, torn by their own challenges. This is not just an action novel of battle, this novel is a series of portraits of real people enduring and experiencing an unique set of circumstances.
This book is one of a set of four books written in the Second World War which shows the experience of so many. Their immediacy and personal impact is ensured by their writing from the midst of experience rather than the long view of memory. I felt this book provided a significant change to my perspective of what the invasion of D Day was actually like, and did so through personal accounts lightly fictionalised for powerful effect. I was so pleased to have the opportunity to read and review this novel. I recommend it for anyone who wants an accurate, moving and sometimes funny book, full of insight into people preparing for battle and the truth of war. An amazing reading experience.
November 17, 2020
This is a story of ordinary men in a humble British battalion, 5th battalion Wessex Regiment, during WWII.
Some are wily resourceful city boys, some are robust, dependable country men, some are hardened veterans brought in to stiffen the green battalion.
The book flow sedately in the beginning, bringing me along and let me see with my own eyes, their constant trainings, camp life and escapades. I can also feel their boredom and impatience to close in with the enemy and get on with their life.
The pace quicken after 5th battalion landed in Normandy. Even though it lacks bloods and gores and vivid explosions as depicted in modern war films, I can still feel the exhaustions and fears of a battlefield.
I bit my lips as I read, the successive chain of command steeled their hearts and gave the orders they know they are sending their men to their dooms.
And the final chapter broke my heart into pieces.
Some are wily resourceful city boys, some are robust, dependable country men, some are hardened veterans brought in to stiffen the green battalion.
The book flow sedately in the beginning, bringing me along and let me see with my own eyes, their constant trainings, camp life and escapades. I can also feel their boredom and impatience to close in with the enemy and get on with their life.
The pace quicken after 5th battalion landed in Normandy. Even though it lacks bloods and gores and vivid explosions as depicted in modern war films, I can still feel the exhaustions and fears of a battlefield.
I bit my lips as I read, the successive chain of command steeled their hearts and gave the orders they know they are sending their men to their dooms.
And the final chapter broke my heart into pieces.
January 12, 2018
Essential reading for anyone wanting an insight into WWII soldiering! This is a fictional account of the lives of soldiers in the lead up to the D-Day landings and subsequent battles based on personal experiences of the author.
June 23, 2024
A great story of the soldiers who trained and fought on D Day and beyond. Written by a veteran officer and based on his experiences and those of the men he served with. Unflinching about the brutality of death in war, as we learn to know these men and feel each loss as casualties mount.
December 11, 2024
I’m not really sure how to review this. Powerful is one way to describe it. The horrors of war are truly unparalleled.
August 28, 2023
This is one of the most moving and harrowing war novels I have ever read. It's nor very long, but it's very illuminating. I found it very easy to read, it has a good flow to it. And I am left feeling a little hollow. I will be thinking about this one for a while.
June 9, 2025
"The mysterious processes of war were carrying the Fifth Battalion, as if on a conveyor belt, towards it destiny. Somewhere in an office a folder was being taken from a steel cabinet, a great mechanical card-index was whirring, teletypers were clacking their frantic messages; harassed, middle-aged brigadiers were sitting round long oak tables adding up battalions and divisions, fumbling with slide-rules, running nicotine stained fingers down the columns of ammunition tables. A thousand clerks and typists were working overtime, irritably and impersonally as if it were an income tax collection that employed them, instead of the destiny of six hundred sunburned men idling in their shirtsleeves on a hillside above the sparkling channel."
This is a remarkable novel, and the sense that the officers and men of the Fifth Battalion, Wessex Regiment, are being propelled forward by forces outside their control is palpable throughout. Alexander Baron builds up a picture of the battalion and its personalities with skill and sensitivity, and by the time they land on D-Day, we've gotten to know Sergeants Shannon and Ferrissey, Corporal Shuttleworth, Privates Charlie Venables and Alfie Bradley, and others. More than that, we've gotten to know and appreciate, and more than that, grown quite fond of, the battalion as a unit. Baron's own wartime experiences shine through his narrative, and the time spent waiting before embarkation provides some of the most memorable passages in the book:
"They had never expected it to be like this; sitting on the grass, in the sunshine, with the ships spread across the sea below and the calm voice coming to them through the silence; the voice calm and quiet as if this were just another training scheme ahead of them. Stolid and steady men themselves, for the most part, they had nevertheless secretly imagined that this would be a moment of inspiration, of brave words, of stirring, farewell messages from the high and mighty. Still, it felt good to be sitting there on the hot grass, elbow to elbow with your mates, listening, with a first, faint fluttering of excitement starting somewhere inside you."
"The men were fit; their strength surged exulting in their veins. They were trained, they were armed and equipped as they had never been before. They were confident, and all their excitement vanished. They were calm now, and outwardly indifferent, waiting without impatience or foreboding. They gave themselves up to the summer and passed their days in a stupor of content, drugged with sunshine, anaesthetised by the scent of blossoming flowers, lazy and languid and enchanted by the richness that was coming to life all round them. The dizzy hours and days reeled past them as they slept in the sun, lulled by the drone of bombers and of bumble bees."
The Battalion is like a family, or a well-tuned machine, and the setting is pastoral, almost idyllic. But the reader knows what is to come, and that knowledge hangs over each chapter like gathering storm clouds. At times, reading about their lives, worries and hopes for the future, it is almost possible to forget what these men are preparing for, and that makes the shock all the greater when it comes. In writing about D-Day itself and the campaign in Normandy, Baron's prose is spare and almost detached. Death plucks men seemingly at random, with no care as to whether they are a character we have grown to love or not. The action at the close of the book, during the latter phase of the campaign in early August, is one of the most memorable and heart-rending portions of war fiction I have read. It captures perfectly the effort and sacrifice required to grind out victory in North West Europe, as our beloved Fifth Battalion is torn to pieces. The fate of many of those we know best is left deliberately unclear and ambiguous at the end, though it is impossible to escape the awful dread that they are all dead. All that remains is the same numb feeling that afflicts the Fifth Battalion's battered survivors:
"Among the rubble, beneath the smoking ruins, the dead of the Fifth Battalion sprawled around the guns which they had silenced; dusty, crumpled and utterly without dignity; a pair of boots protruding from a roadside ditch; a body blackened and bent like a chicken burnt in the stove; a face pressed into the dirt; a hand reaching up out of a mass of brick and timbers; a rump thrust ludicrously towards the sky. The living lay among them, speechless, exhausted, beyond grief or triumph, drawing at broken cigarettes and watching with sunken eyes the tanks go by....The earth and the air shook with their passing. The upflung dust rolled away, to right and left, in two white screens, and settled, in fine, grey veils, upon the upturned faces of the dead. The humped, crouching silhouettes of the tanks covered the white road for miles. Still gathering speed they rumbled on, a black, dotted line reaching out across the map, towards Germany."
This is a remarkable novel, and the sense that the officers and men of the Fifth Battalion, Wessex Regiment, are being propelled forward by forces outside their control is palpable throughout. Alexander Baron builds up a picture of the battalion and its personalities with skill and sensitivity, and by the time they land on D-Day, we've gotten to know Sergeants Shannon and Ferrissey, Corporal Shuttleworth, Privates Charlie Venables and Alfie Bradley, and others. More than that, we've gotten to know and appreciate, and more than that, grown quite fond of, the battalion as a unit. Baron's own wartime experiences shine through his narrative, and the time spent waiting before embarkation provides some of the most memorable passages in the book:
"They had never expected it to be like this; sitting on the grass, in the sunshine, with the ships spread across the sea below and the calm voice coming to them through the silence; the voice calm and quiet as if this were just another training scheme ahead of them. Stolid and steady men themselves, for the most part, they had nevertheless secretly imagined that this would be a moment of inspiration, of brave words, of stirring, farewell messages from the high and mighty. Still, it felt good to be sitting there on the hot grass, elbow to elbow with your mates, listening, with a first, faint fluttering of excitement starting somewhere inside you."
"The men were fit; their strength surged exulting in their veins. They were trained, they were armed and equipped as they had never been before. They were confident, and all their excitement vanished. They were calm now, and outwardly indifferent, waiting without impatience or foreboding. They gave themselves up to the summer and passed their days in a stupor of content, drugged with sunshine, anaesthetised by the scent of blossoming flowers, lazy and languid and enchanted by the richness that was coming to life all round them. The dizzy hours and days reeled past them as they slept in the sun, lulled by the drone of bombers and of bumble bees."
The Battalion is like a family, or a well-tuned machine, and the setting is pastoral, almost idyllic. But the reader knows what is to come, and that knowledge hangs over each chapter like gathering storm clouds. At times, reading about their lives, worries and hopes for the future, it is almost possible to forget what these men are preparing for, and that makes the shock all the greater when it comes. In writing about D-Day itself and the campaign in Normandy, Baron's prose is spare and almost detached. Death plucks men seemingly at random, with no care as to whether they are a character we have grown to love or not. The action at the close of the book, during the latter phase of the campaign in early August, is one of the most memorable and heart-rending portions of war fiction I have read. It captures perfectly the effort and sacrifice required to grind out victory in North West Europe, as our beloved Fifth Battalion is torn to pieces. The fate of many of those we know best is left deliberately unclear and ambiguous at the end, though it is impossible to escape the awful dread that they are all dead. All that remains is the same numb feeling that afflicts the Fifth Battalion's battered survivors:
"Among the rubble, beneath the smoking ruins, the dead of the Fifth Battalion sprawled around the guns which they had silenced; dusty, crumpled and utterly without dignity; a pair of boots protruding from a roadside ditch; a body blackened and bent like a chicken burnt in the stove; a face pressed into the dirt; a hand reaching up out of a mass of brick and timbers; a rump thrust ludicrously towards the sky. The living lay among them, speechless, exhausted, beyond grief or triumph, drawing at broken cigarettes and watching with sunken eyes the tanks go by....The earth and the air shook with their passing. The upflung dust rolled away, to right and left, in two white screens, and settled, in fine, grey veils, upon the upturned faces of the dead. The humped, crouching silhouettes of the tanks covered the white road for miles. Still gathering speed they rumbled on, a black, dotted line reaching out across the map, towards Germany."
September 8, 2019
The Imperial War Museum has just released four wartime classics as part of the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of Second Wold War and I delighted to be reviewing all four of these classic wartime stories. The first is From the City, From the Plough (IWM Wartime Classics) by Alexander Baron.
First released in 1948 and went on to sell over a million copies. War stories tell of bravery but also the shock and horror of war. And here Alexander Baron tells the story of the Fifth Battalion, Wessex Regiment as they prepared in the run-up to D-Day and the storming of the beaches.
Like any wartime story or film we come to know the leading characters and you know instantly some are not going to make it. This is the horror of war. A generation of young men ready to take on the Nazi war machine on the coast of Normandy. This is a powerful story told in under 200 pages. You come to know each of the men and how they interact with each other. These are ordinary men who were leading a normal working class life now they have left their families and their homes to fight. This novel is based on Baron’s own experiences of the battle for Normandy so he not only writes with incredible prose but from experience. Some of the storyline is meant to shock, but tells the story as it should be told. It is no surprise that Baron went on to be a successful writer and screenwriter. The men become a band of brothers as they stand side by side and storm the beaches and the horrors that wait as the beach comes closer.
Make no mistake this is no ordinary war story but one that is told as it was. A country at a time when it was still rebuilding and lives rebuilding now they could read a novel based on what it was really like. What must it have been like as they started to board the landing craft seeing the beaches ahead and shells exploding on the beaches. It is here in the story.
I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity of reviewing all four of these wartime classics that the Imperial War Museum have now released to a new generation of readers in a year when we have commemorated the 75th anniversary of D-Day back in June. Over the next few weeks look out the three other titles in the IWM Wartime Classics Series. Highly Recommended.
First released in 1948 and went on to sell over a million copies. War stories tell of bravery but also the shock and horror of war. And here Alexander Baron tells the story of the Fifth Battalion, Wessex Regiment as they prepared in the run-up to D-Day and the storming of the beaches.
Like any wartime story or film we come to know the leading characters and you know instantly some are not going to make it. This is the horror of war. A generation of young men ready to take on the Nazi war machine on the coast of Normandy. This is a powerful story told in under 200 pages. You come to know each of the men and how they interact with each other. These are ordinary men who were leading a normal working class life now they have left their families and their homes to fight. This novel is based on Baron’s own experiences of the battle for Normandy so he not only writes with incredible prose but from experience. Some of the storyline is meant to shock, but tells the story as it should be told. It is no surprise that Baron went on to be a successful writer and screenwriter. The men become a band of brothers as they stand side by side and storm the beaches and the horrors that wait as the beach comes closer.
Make no mistake this is no ordinary war story but one that is told as it was. A country at a time when it was still rebuilding and lives rebuilding now they could read a novel based on what it was really like. What must it have been like as they started to board the landing craft seeing the beaches ahead and shells exploding on the beaches. It is here in the story.
I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity of reviewing all four of these wartime classics that the Imperial War Museum have now released to a new generation of readers in a year when we have commemorated the 75th anniversary of D-Day back in June. Over the next few weeks look out the three other titles in the IWM Wartime Classics Series. Highly Recommended.
May 21, 2016
This is a superlative World War Two novel. Its originality lies in the fact that it was written by a ordinary soldier, not an officer. Most of the best World War Two-set novels that I have read were authored by officers (I'm thinking here in particular of Evelyn Waugh's superb Sword of Honour trilogy, but also of the likes of The Small Back Room, written in 1943 by Major Nigel Balchin). Interestingly, Baron would almost certainly have been made an officer had he not been a Communist (that sort of thing was not allowed in 1940 when he was conscripted).
From the City, From the Plough records the story of the (fictional) Fifth Battalion of the Wessex Regiment in the lead-up to D-Day and then in and around the Normandy beaches themselves. There is a lot of build-up before the battalion goes into action and this aspect of the book will not be to everyone's taste. However, Baron is very good on the frustrations experienced by a large group of men desperate to be doing something, anything almost (I was reminded here of Christopher Nevinson's painting French Troops Resting), and he describes the activities of a wide cross-section of soldiers from top to bottom. Some of this material is very funny and there is a lot of interesting incidental detail.
When the battalion finally goes into action then the novel shifts up several gears. The assault on the beaches is graphic, moving and very memorable. If the attack is over almost before it began then that was presumably Baron's own experience of D-Day and there are compensatory attractions to be found in the way in which he describes the aftermath of the assault and, admittedly, the battle does flare up again from time to time.
This book is beautifully written, heartfelt, humane and feels utterly true to life. At times I found it a little slow for my taste and Baron occasionally drifts towards sentimentality but his story is immensely readable and represents a vivid recreation of the Normandy landings from an ordinary soldier who was actually there. A fabulous achievement and having enjoyed this and There's No Home already this year I am anxious to read more by the same author.
From the City, From the Plough records the story of the (fictional) Fifth Battalion of the Wessex Regiment in the lead-up to D-Day and then in and around the Normandy beaches themselves. There is a lot of build-up before the battalion goes into action and this aspect of the book will not be to everyone's taste. However, Baron is very good on the frustrations experienced by a large group of men desperate to be doing something, anything almost (I was reminded here of Christopher Nevinson's painting French Troops Resting), and he describes the activities of a wide cross-section of soldiers from top to bottom. Some of this material is very funny and there is a lot of interesting incidental detail.
When the battalion finally goes into action then the novel shifts up several gears. The assault on the beaches is graphic, moving and very memorable. If the attack is over almost before it began then that was presumably Baron's own experience of D-Day and there are compensatory attractions to be found in the way in which he describes the aftermath of the assault and, admittedly, the battle does flare up again from time to time.
This book is beautifully written, heartfelt, humane and feels utterly true to life. At times I found it a little slow for my taste and Baron occasionally drifts towards sentimentality but his story is immensely readable and represents a vivid recreation of the Normandy landings from an ordinary soldier who was actually there. A fabulous achievement and having enjoyed this and There's No Home already this year I am anxious to read more by the same author.
September 4, 2019
The events of D-Day, now so long ago, with only a handful of war veterans who were actually there, proves that this novel is all the more timely as it gives a fictional account of the build up to D-Day as seen through the eyes of the men who made up the 5th Battalion of the Wessex Regiment. This group of soldiers, like so many battalions, was drawn from all aspects of life, from those who arrived covered in the dust and grime of cities, to the country boys who were more at home wielding a scythe, or ploughing a field, and yet in exceptional circumstances, this band of brothers grouped together to form a cohesive whole.
From the City, From the Plough, is the author's fictional account of a situation he experienced at first hand as he was one of the soldiers to go across the channel around D-Day. He writes with authority about the inertia of the long hot summer of 1944 when the soldiers of the 5th Battalion were waiting for action. The novel instills such a sense of reality that there were times when I forgot that I was reading a fictional account as it feels more as if you are living through every second of the interminable waiting with them.
When the action finally starts to happen there's a real sense of horror as the men struggled with ferocious German bombardment and of the sheer hard slog of trying to keep one step ahead of an enemy who was as dangerous as it was unpredictable. The novel tells a powerful story and doesn't describe the men of the 5th battalion as anything other than soldiers with faults and failings, some good, some bad, some who were typical opportunists, who were out for themselves, and others who were inherently good blokes with a sense of patriotic duty.
The book was published in 1948 and its first print run of 3000 copies sold out before publication. Since then the book has sold over one million copies, and it is hoped that this new IWM edition will bring this powerful story to a whole new readership.
From the City, From the Plough brings D-Day to life in a story which breaks your heart into a million pieces and it is one which will stay with me for a very long time.
From the City, From the Plough, is the author's fictional account of a situation he experienced at first hand as he was one of the soldiers to go across the channel around D-Day. He writes with authority about the inertia of the long hot summer of 1944 when the soldiers of the 5th Battalion were waiting for action. The novel instills such a sense of reality that there were times when I forgot that I was reading a fictional account as it feels more as if you are living through every second of the interminable waiting with them.
When the action finally starts to happen there's a real sense of horror as the men struggled with ferocious German bombardment and of the sheer hard slog of trying to keep one step ahead of an enemy who was as dangerous as it was unpredictable. The novel tells a powerful story and doesn't describe the men of the 5th battalion as anything other than soldiers with faults and failings, some good, some bad, some who were typical opportunists, who were out for themselves, and others who were inherently good blokes with a sense of patriotic duty.
The book was published in 1948 and its first print run of 3000 copies sold out before publication. Since then the book has sold over one million copies, and it is hoped that this new IWM edition will bring this powerful story to a whole new readership.
From the City, From the Plough brings D-Day to life in a story which breaks your heart into a million pieces and it is one which will stay with me for a very long time.
September 15, 2019
I have read fiction concerning WW2 before but never anything that has felt so real as this book. I felt many times like I was reading non-fiction and this can only be down to the author reliving his own experience.
The first half concerned the training, the building of friendships, finding out who could be relied on, life in the local area, especially with the local women. And mainly pointing out the obvious to the reader. That this group of men were not soldiers. They were farmers, industrial and city workers who were prepared to do their duty but scared of what they faced. Just like any soldier though, they were husbands, fathers and sons whose loved ones had little idea of what they really faced.
The second half, mainly set in Normandy was where the narrative really hit home. Yes, there are accounts of the men marching through the villages with flowers in their helmets, singing and making the local children a little happier but there are also increasingly upsetting accounts of death, fear and exhaustion. Two things hit me. How chilling and ironic to read of soldiers fighting a war sheltering behind a war memorial for the last one and the strange acceptance of death. Where the loss of a food lorry had more significance than the loss of a friend. It demonstrated what these young men faced each and every day.
The ending was one that I thought about long after finishing. It was one which gave no hope for the men going into their next battle and left me thinking that the ones who’re injured early on were the lucky ones.
The first half concerned the training, the building of friendships, finding out who could be relied on, life in the local area, especially with the local women. And mainly pointing out the obvious to the reader. That this group of men were not soldiers. They were farmers, industrial and city workers who were prepared to do their duty but scared of what they faced. Just like any soldier though, they were husbands, fathers and sons whose loved ones had little idea of what they really faced.
The second half, mainly set in Normandy was where the narrative really hit home. Yes, there are accounts of the men marching through the villages with flowers in their helmets, singing and making the local children a little happier but there are also increasingly upsetting accounts of death, fear and exhaustion. Two things hit me. How chilling and ironic to read of soldiers fighting a war sheltering behind a war memorial for the last one and the strange acceptance of death. Where the loss of a food lorry had more significance than the loss of a friend. It demonstrated what these young men faced each and every day.
The ending was one that I thought about long after finishing. It was one which gave no hope for the men going into their next battle and left me thinking that the ones who’re injured early on were the lucky ones.
September 6, 2019
First written in 1948, this is a piece of fiction yet it is based on Alexander Baron's real life experiences.
Whilst not a huge read physically, its less than 200 pages, it's a huge read literary wise, this book is a stunning accomplishment which stands the test of time to this day.
Detailing the story of the Fifth Battalion as they train and await their posting, the first part of the book, is engaging, and builds subtlety as we are introduced to the characters in the book, all well believable and possibly very real people.
Later, the book describes the most harrowing D-Day landings in Normandy and then the press onward through France battling the enemy.
At times, horrific, haunting and emotional, it’s very deep, and very sad as you know what your reading is based on real events. I found my self so caught up in these events I was almost heart-broken at the outcome of the soldiers we meet through the book.
Baron wrote this raw powerful story without wasting any extra filling words. His story is both compelling and beautiful. It’s very moving.
Quite simply a fantastic achievement that a book written over 60 years ago can be picked up by a 37-year-old man, and effect me quite the way it has.
My reading of books from, and based on the tragic awful events of ww2 are limited, yet I think I would be hard pressed to read another book so vivid and so very realistic
Highly Recommended
5 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Whilst not a huge read physically, its less than 200 pages, it's a huge read literary wise, this book is a stunning accomplishment which stands the test of time to this day.
Detailing the story of the Fifth Battalion as they train and await their posting, the first part of the book, is engaging, and builds subtlety as we are introduced to the characters in the book, all well believable and possibly very real people.
Later, the book describes the most harrowing D-Day landings in Normandy and then the press onward through France battling the enemy.
At times, horrific, haunting and emotional, it’s very deep, and very sad as you know what your reading is based on real events. I found my self so caught up in these events I was almost heart-broken at the outcome of the soldiers we meet through the book.
Baron wrote this raw powerful story without wasting any extra filling words. His story is both compelling and beautiful. It’s very moving.
Quite simply a fantastic achievement that a book written over 60 years ago can be picked up by a 37-year-old man, and effect me quite the way it has.
My reading of books from, and based on the tragic awful events of ww2 are limited, yet I think I would be hard pressed to read another book so vivid and so very realistic
Highly Recommended
5 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
April 22, 2013
A brilliant book written in 1948 and truly captures the brutality of the Normandy landings. His writing is wonderfully descriptive and the characters are so well drawn that its impossible not to be moved by the subsequent events. This book should be better known!!
March 22, 2024
Wrote my last ever grad school paper on this book (derogatory)
May 11, 2021
An engrossing depiction of life in a battalion of ordinary British soldiers in World War Two, written soon after the war by a British ex-soldier. It is, essentially, a pseudo-memoir in novel form as Alexander Baron drew heavily from his own experiences and observations (read Sean Longden's exceptional introduction and afterword for more insight). The book is often highly-praised by war veterans who say "Read this. This is what it was like." Not being someone who has experienced such things, I cannot vouch for this, but I have to say that nevertheless I found the battle scenes intense and horrific in a way I have never experienced before in the written word.
The prose is sparse (Baron is one of those gifted writers who has more to say in the white spaces between the lines than in the lines themselves) and it is told in a matter-of-fact way that strongly reminded me of the interviews and anecdotes given by World War Two veterans that I have often heard and read in numerous history books. There is no indulgent lyricism or high-minded language, which suits the remorseless and unsentimental, almost confessional, narrative. This is not to say that the prose is poor; it contains a number of evocative phrases - my favourite being the British soldiers watching, on the night of D-Day, the brutal enemy artillery "gun-flashes tearing the darkness apart" (pg. 121).
Baron observes the war with the cynical, unromantic eye of the honest Tommy; when the commander rouses the men in the final battle, it is not with a Shakespearean "ye lucky few" type speech, or even a regimental battle-cry, but with kicks, with yells, and above all, by setting an example to the ragged men and leading from the front. When two characters debate their duty and obligations it is not followed by outpourings of patriotism or hatred for the enemy. Rather, as one of them explains to the other, it's like when, back at home, you're told by your ma to run to the shops for a loaf. You get up and go, then come back. It's just something that has to be done (pg. 105). It's one of the most profound and unassuming (and accurate) reflections on the soldier's duty that I have ever come across.
It is a book packed with emotional power; scene after scene of raw humanity. The heartbreaking moments do not always come in battle; indeed, one of the most affecting scenes is of a choir of grateful French schoolchildren singing 'God Save the Queen' to the weary soldiers in broken English (pg. 155). But the battle scenes are the highlight, without a doubt. Though few, they made a deep impression on this reader. It is in these moments when Baron's detached yet paradoxically intimate narrative voice is at its best. Much as a seasoned soldier would, the narrative deals with death and injury in a matter-of-fact way; major characters are suddenly gone, or crippled, and the narrative quickly moves on, just as a fellow soldier on a battlefield would in passing such scenes. As I alluded to above, the final battle scene is one of the most intense scenes I have experienced in the written word, and I felt genuine heartache as the soldiers are repeatedly put through the wringer. Incoming artillery fire is considered one of the most horrific and nerve-wracking experiences that an infantry soldier can go through, and the men of the 5th Wessex, these pieces of "soft, human flesh clad only in khaki serge, with the angry splinters of steel whining among them" (pg. 176) endure it repeatedly in one of the most brutal battles of the Normandy campaign. In these moments, it is the little things that make the prose add up to more than the sum of its parts. For example, we witness the losses on the British side to the relentless artillery fire, which is "like waves sweeping away the clusters of men clinging to the mainmast of a sinking ship" in a storm (pg. 183), and Baron notes that all this is happening before the British even catch sight of the German helmets (pg. 180). He doesn't dwell on this detail, but attentive readers will notice it and find it heartbreaking.
Another powerful technique that Baron employs towards the end is that he stops using the names of his characters: we are not told who survives the battle, we are only told of "the men of the Fifth Battalion", now alarmingly depleted in number and in energy. This might sound unacceptable and off-putting to someone who has not read the book, feeling that the story may lack in resolution, but it is an extraordinarily powerful way to end. Maybe we're not told who survives because, as Longden suggests in his introduction, it is pointless - even if they did survive that battle, they probably wouldn't survive the next one. I would perhaps suggest that we're not told who survives because no one whose name we have been told has survived. It is a disturbing thought, and a truly poignant way to end the book.
The prose is sparse (Baron is one of those gifted writers who has more to say in the white spaces between the lines than in the lines themselves) and it is told in a matter-of-fact way that strongly reminded me of the interviews and anecdotes given by World War Two veterans that I have often heard and read in numerous history books. There is no indulgent lyricism or high-minded language, which suits the remorseless and unsentimental, almost confessional, narrative. This is not to say that the prose is poor; it contains a number of evocative phrases - my favourite being the British soldiers watching, on the night of D-Day, the brutal enemy artillery "gun-flashes tearing the darkness apart" (pg. 121).
Baron observes the war with the cynical, unromantic eye of the honest Tommy; when the commander rouses the men in the final battle, it is not with a Shakespearean "ye lucky few" type speech, or even a regimental battle-cry, but with kicks, with yells, and above all, by setting an example to the ragged men and leading from the front. When two characters debate their duty and obligations it is not followed by outpourings of patriotism or hatred for the enemy. Rather, as one of them explains to the other, it's like when, back at home, you're told by your ma to run to the shops for a loaf. You get up and go, then come back. It's just something that has to be done (pg. 105). It's one of the most profound and unassuming (and accurate) reflections on the soldier's duty that I have ever come across.
It is a book packed with emotional power; scene after scene of raw humanity. The heartbreaking moments do not always come in battle; indeed, one of the most affecting scenes is of a choir of grateful French schoolchildren singing 'God Save the Queen' to the weary soldiers in broken English (pg. 155). But the battle scenes are the highlight, without a doubt. Though few, they made a deep impression on this reader. It is in these moments when Baron's detached yet paradoxically intimate narrative voice is at its best. Much as a seasoned soldier would, the narrative deals with death and injury in a matter-of-fact way; major characters are suddenly gone, or crippled, and the narrative quickly moves on, just as a fellow soldier on a battlefield would in passing such scenes. As I alluded to above, the final battle scene is one of the most intense scenes I have experienced in the written word, and I felt genuine heartache as the soldiers are repeatedly put through the wringer. Incoming artillery fire is considered one of the most horrific and nerve-wracking experiences that an infantry soldier can go through, and the men of the 5th Wessex, these pieces of "soft, human flesh clad only in khaki serge, with the angry splinters of steel whining among them" (pg. 176) endure it repeatedly in one of the most brutal battles of the Normandy campaign. In these moments, it is the little things that make the prose add up to more than the sum of its parts. For example, we witness the losses on the British side to the relentless artillery fire, which is "like waves sweeping away the clusters of men clinging to the mainmast of a sinking ship" in a storm (pg. 183), and Baron notes that all this is happening before the British even catch sight of the German helmets (pg. 180). He doesn't dwell on this detail, but attentive readers will notice it and find it heartbreaking.
Another powerful technique that Baron employs towards the end is that he stops using the names of his characters: we are not told who survives the battle, we are only told of "the men of the Fifth Battalion", now alarmingly depleted in number and in energy. This might sound unacceptable and off-putting to someone who has not read the book, feeling that the story may lack in resolution, but it is an extraordinarily powerful way to end. Maybe we're not told who survives because, as Longden suggests in his introduction, it is pointless - even if they did survive that battle, they probably wouldn't survive the next one. I would perhaps suggest that we're not told who survives because no one whose name we have been told has survived. It is a disturbing thought, and a truly poignant way to end the book.
September 6, 2019
We learn about war from an early age. We’re taught about it in our classrooms, read about it in the beautiful, haunting poetry of the war poets – Sassoon, Owen, Jarrell. Yet now social media and our global village world mean our access to war is pretty much immediate and, we are, in many ways, becoming inured to it, to the brutality, the devastation, the destruction, the horror, the loss. How do we check that? The words of those in the thick of it can help. In September 2019, to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War, the wonderful Imperial War Museum launches new editions of previously published classics, written during or just after the conflict. Among these gems is Alexander Baron’s extremely fine first novel, From the City, From the Plough.
More fact than fiction, the novel draws heavily on Baron’s own experiences of the war, following the men and officers of the fictional Fifth Battalion, Wessex regiment, from their training in England to D-Day and the Normandy campaign. The men come from all walks of life, from the urban to the countryside, and are thrown together to become brothers in arms under the most horrific of circumstances. Baron shows the minutiae and mundanity of everyday life for the soldiers, and officers who lead them, as they try to prepare for what will come.
Through pared back, unflinching prose, Baron introduces us to a cast of characters, warts and all, totally believable in their moments of humour, compassion, love, fear and despair. His men are authentic, people who have made mistakes, have hopes and dreams, and that is what makes the reading of this book all the more poignant as history has already told us what will happen to most of the battalion even before we read Baron’s well-penned words.
From the City, From the Plough is poetic at times, the repetition of phrases and words, and even sentences, giving it a specific rhythm. It’s a beautiful book and quite rightly has been hailed by commentators such as Sir Antony Beever as among the great British novels of the Second World War. I can’t recommend it enough, nor, indeed, the other books in this series; reviews to follow. It’s certainly not an easy read, but it’s an important one.…
See full review: http://www.theliteraryshed.co.uk/read...
This review was originally published as part of the IWM virtual book tour. Thanks to the publisher for a review copy. All opinions are our own. All rights reserved.
More fact than fiction, the novel draws heavily on Baron’s own experiences of the war, following the men and officers of the fictional Fifth Battalion, Wessex regiment, from their training in England to D-Day and the Normandy campaign. The men come from all walks of life, from the urban to the countryside, and are thrown together to become brothers in arms under the most horrific of circumstances. Baron shows the minutiae and mundanity of everyday life for the soldiers, and officers who lead them, as they try to prepare for what will come.
Through pared back, unflinching prose, Baron introduces us to a cast of characters, warts and all, totally believable in their moments of humour, compassion, love, fear and despair. His men are authentic, people who have made mistakes, have hopes and dreams, and that is what makes the reading of this book all the more poignant as history has already told us what will happen to most of the battalion even before we read Baron’s well-penned words.
From the City, From the Plough is poetic at times, the repetition of phrases and words, and even sentences, giving it a specific rhythm. It’s a beautiful book and quite rightly has been hailed by commentators such as Sir Antony Beever as among the great British novels of the Second World War. I can’t recommend it enough, nor, indeed, the other books in this series; reviews to follow. It’s certainly not an easy read, but it’s an important one.…
See full review: http://www.theliteraryshed.co.uk/read...
This review was originally published as part of the IWM virtual book tour. Thanks to the publisher for a review copy. All opinions are our own. All rights reserved.
July 20, 2025
General Overview
A contender to be my book of the year, From the City, From the Plough was an amazing read. Weaved together with stories from Mr Alexander Baron's actual times during the war, this book is poetic, beautiful, harrowing, and just a spectacular read.
Style
Mr Baron writes wonderfully. Giving time for proses when needed, he does not waste words when a few can deal greater punch. Delivered from the point of view of a variety of characters, the setting, the rolling countryside of the south of England, and the war-torn fields of Normandy also serve as well in passing on his tale.
Some of the characters could be seen to be a bit flat, a bit 2 dimensional. I'd argue this serves the wider point of the narrative, and those characters that need depth, have it.
Story
Following the story of the 5th Wessex Regiment, we see these group of recruits, scattered with campaign veterans prepare and face up to what they are going to face. Namely, the opening of the 2nd front. The invasion of Normandy. D-Day.
The first half builds and builds in its tenseness. Before exploding, rolling away in the mud, blood and exhaustion of the invasion. Characters are lost. Many are lost in the 2nd half, and I was amazed at how much I cared for them. Though even in this sorrow, moments, flashes of joy are seen, as was found in the war itself.
The end took my breath away. A sucker punch like no other, that really sells what the war was. A necessity. A grinding of human souls and effort in the war machine.
Final Thoughts
I cannot recommend this book enough. Utterly incredible. If you have a slight interest in the period, or are looking to study it, read this. If you like great fiction read this. Just read it.
A contender to be my book of the year, From the City, From the Plough was an amazing read. Weaved together with stories from Mr Alexander Baron's actual times during the war, this book is poetic, beautiful, harrowing, and just a spectacular read.
Style
Mr Baron writes wonderfully. Giving time for proses when needed, he does not waste words when a few can deal greater punch. Delivered from the point of view of a variety of characters, the setting, the rolling countryside of the south of England, and the war-torn fields of Normandy also serve as well in passing on his tale.
Some of the characters could be seen to be a bit flat, a bit 2 dimensional. I'd argue this serves the wider point of the narrative, and those characters that need depth, have it.
Story
Following the story of the 5th Wessex Regiment, we see these group of recruits, scattered with campaign veterans prepare and face up to what they are going to face. Namely, the opening of the 2nd front. The invasion of Normandy. D-Day.
The first half builds and builds in its tenseness. Before exploding, rolling away in the mud, blood and exhaustion of the invasion. Characters are lost. Many are lost in the 2nd half, and I was amazed at how much I cared for them. Though even in this sorrow, moments, flashes of joy are seen, as was found in the war itself.
The end took my breath away. A sucker punch like no other, that really sells what the war was. A necessity. A grinding of human souls and effort in the war machine.
Final Thoughts
I cannot recommend this book enough. Utterly incredible. If you have a slight interest in the period, or are looking to study it, read this. If you like great fiction read this. Just read it.
October 28, 2022
Put simply, one of the great war novels, on a par with Remarque's "Im Westen nichts Neues" ("All Quiet ..."). Alec Bernstein (writing as Alexander Baron) went ashore in Normandy a couple of days after the initial D-Day landing. Personal experience but hardly autobiography. Indeed, there are many characters in this story, but the book is best seen as the biography of an infantry battalion. Given the fictional name of 5th Wessex, the story follows the months leading up to D-Day - endless drills, training, rumours, boredom, more rumours ... and then suddenly they're under way ... onto ships ... into landing craft.
Several of the men in the battalion get walk on roles - there's a particularly brilliant little sketch of 0-3-7 Smith (037 being Smith's 'last three', the last three digits of his service number). We get to meet the men of the battalion, warts and all. They're no saints, they're not one dimensional. These are complex individuals in a stressful situation.
This is no romanticised war story, there's no attempt to glamourise war. When the fighting starts it's exhaustiing, terrifying - men die suddenly, men die in pain, men find themselves missing a limb or a face. Death is all around ... and they've run out of cigarettes.
D-Day is on the horizon ... and the story builds towards this. Boredom. Routines. And more rumours. Endless training and route marches. Sore feet, socks needing darning. Routines. And still more rumours. And D-Day is on the horizon.
It's a magnificently structured novel, beautifully written, a study of soldiering not just warfare. Reviewing this book seems superfluous - just read it ... and marvel.
Several of the men in the battalion get walk on roles - there's a particularly brilliant little sketch of 0-3-7 Smith (037 being Smith's 'last three', the last three digits of his service number). We get to meet the men of the battalion, warts and all. They're no saints, they're not one dimensional. These are complex individuals in a stressful situation.
This is no romanticised war story, there's no attempt to glamourise war. When the fighting starts it's exhaustiing, terrifying - men die suddenly, men die in pain, men find themselves missing a limb or a face. Death is all around ... and they've run out of cigarettes.
D-Day is on the horizon ... and the story builds towards this. Boredom. Routines. And more rumours. Endless training and route marches. Sore feet, socks needing darning. Routines. And still more rumours. And D-Day is on the horizon.
It's a magnificently structured novel, beautifully written, a study of soldiering not just warfare. Reviewing this book seems superfluous - just read it ... and marvel.
August 23, 2024
'Battle has its own strange chemistry. The courage and endurance of a group of men is greater than the sum total of courage and endurance of the individuals in the group; for, when most of the group have reached the limits of human endeavour, there is always one among them who can surpass those limits, who will hold the others together and drive them on. It is not the romantic picture of war; but the it is the truth of war.'
It's hard to comprehend why this novel isn't more famous. Baron depicts the war in such a clear way, clearly based on his own experiences of WWII. It is a novel that depicts the reality of war, which is a harsh reminder of what men and women must face in war in our world today.
Other readers mention the slow pace of the first half, and I would disagree. Much of the living, waiting, and training informs the experience of soldiers' daily routines. This sets up the characters and contextualises them as normal people. The latter half can be a bit chaotic as a lot happens to the soldiers once they are deployed, but this adds to the reflection of the pace and hectic nature of war.
I wouldn't be surprised to learn if this book inspired films and series about the war, including Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers amongst others.
Although war is the context of this novel, there are several moments in which the reader is reminded of humility and kindness; the small acts that have a reverberating impact on others. This is a great read and I'm really stunned that this isn't more well-known, especially given the role that WWII plays in the UK's national consciousness.
It's hard to comprehend why this novel isn't more famous. Baron depicts the war in such a clear way, clearly based on his own experiences of WWII. It is a novel that depicts the reality of war, which is a harsh reminder of what men and women must face in war in our world today.
Other readers mention the slow pace of the first half, and I would disagree. Much of the living, waiting, and training informs the experience of soldiers' daily routines. This sets up the characters and contextualises them as normal people. The latter half can be a bit chaotic as a lot happens to the soldiers once they are deployed, but this adds to the reflection of the pace and hectic nature of war.
I wouldn't be surprised to learn if this book inspired films and series about the war, including Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers amongst others.
Although war is the context of this novel, there are several moments in which the reader is reminded of humility and kindness; the small acts that have a reverberating impact on others. This is a great read and I'm really stunned that this isn't more well-known, especially given the role that WWII plays in the UK's national consciousness.
November 21, 2021
In some ways it's weird that, given my fascination with historical fiction, I'd never come across Alexander Baron's remarkable novel before. But it deserves all its props as a classic, from its unflinching, guttural bleakness to its often gorgeous actualisations of relatable, innocent life. It's brief but wide-ranging, and brilliantly unsentimental. It somehow finds a philosophical middle ground between pride and tragedy, honouring the soldiers who died in WW2 whilst rejecting any kind of misguided, nationalistic ideological bludgeoning.
It's probably worth mentioning that Alan Jeffreys' introduction is a great example of a decent reappraisal. Many of the characters are distinctly unlikeable - most notably the brutal Major Maddison - and some of the 'banter' and language is dated to say the least. But somehow it doesn't detract from the overall bitingness of the text; the senses of foreboding and romance that litter the novel's first half, the communal distrust of those giving the orders, the sheer terror of landing on the Normandy beaches. It's a timely and uncompromising depiction of a reality which - no matter how many films are made - will probably never stop being unfathomable.
It's probably worth mentioning that Alan Jeffreys' introduction is a great example of a decent reappraisal. Many of the characters are distinctly unlikeable - most notably the brutal Major Maddison - and some of the 'banter' and language is dated to say the least. But somehow it doesn't detract from the overall bitingness of the text; the senses of foreboding and romance that litter the novel's first half, the communal distrust of those giving the orders, the sheer terror of landing on the Normandy beaches. It's a timely and uncompromising depiction of a reality which - no matter how many films are made - will probably never stop being unfathomable.
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