The Reconstruction of Warriors: Archibald McIndoe, the Royal Air Force and the Guinea Pig Club by E. R. Mayhew. Greenhill Books/Lionel Leventhal Limited (http://www.greenhillbooks.com), Park House, 1 Russell Gardens, London NW11 9NN, 2004, 240 pages, $39.95 (hardcover).

When I first received this book for review, I immediately recalled a grisly scene from the film The Battle of Britain in which a British fighter’s plane was hit and his cockpit filled with flames. The image of a flaming cockpit conveys a basic idea of what this book is about.

Dr. E. R. Mayhew provides us with a brief history of a special group of bomber and fighter pilots—the Guinea Pig Club—during World War II. One finds dark humor in the club’s name because one had to have suffered wounds requiring plastic surgery to qualify for membership; more precisely, one had to have suffered burns. International in scope, the Guinea Pig Club offered the best possible treatment for burns, no matter the country for which one flew. The group’s leader, Dr. Archibald McIndoe, a pioneer in plastic surgery, earned a worldwide reputation in the treatment of burn victims and the consequent reconstructive procedure. Mayhew, who obtained her PhD from Imperial College London, has a special link to the Guinea Pig Club in that her grandmother worked for McIndoe at East Grinstead, England. How’s that for connecting with the past?

The Reconstruction of Warriors reminds the reader of the dangers of flying, even in noncombat situations (e.g., takeoffs and landings), because the aircraft’s fuel essentially transforms it into a flying bomb. It also reminds us that the wounded represent more than statistics; they need extensive time, energy, and resources not only to heal but also to regain acceptance into society—an important consideration when one deals with burn victims. Dr. Mayhew drives home the point that, especially after the Battle of Britain, bomber crews rather than fighter pilots comprised the majority of the Guinea Pig Club’s members; further, she suggests that other events have perhaps overshadowed the bomber’s war and that overemphasizing the Battle of Britain itself has skewed our perceptions.

Mayhew begins with a brief description of the creation of a specialized medical service in the Royal Air Force (RAF), one dedicated to rehabilitating its fliers and experimenting to find less flammable and more durable fuel tanks. The book offers a generous selection of firsthand reports of aircrew members who suffered burns and injuries due to combat and noncombat operations; the ghastly details of these grisly accounts sober the reader to the realities of war.

The author rightly credits the remarkable achievements of Archibald McIndoe as central to the successful reconstruction of the injured warriors. Relatively new at the time, plastic surgery and the methods of treating these victims’ facial and other burns now seem primitive at best. Due to McIndoe’s work, that changed—not only in the RAF but also throughout the world. McIndoe was also adamant about the importance of the victim’s social recovery—a point not lost on the author.

It is one thing to treat these victims, but what of the effects of their injuries? Despite the exceptional work of McIndoe and his staff, noticeable facial disfigurements remained. Realizing that the healing process would encompass the time the Guinea Pigs reentered normal life and returned to their families, work, and society at large, McIndoe went to great lengths to make sure that businesses and townspeople did all they could to help the wounded airmen feel welcome and “normal.” The book details the efforts and kindnesses of the British people as an integral part of the healing process.

This last point makes The Reconstruction of Warriors valuable to today’s military. From it, one can draw lessons on how we should treat both the physical and psychological wounds of warfare. We would do well to follow the British example not only for treating wounds but also for receiving veterans back into civilian life. Only then can true “healing” occur.

Overall Mayhew has produced a fast and easy read. Despite occasionally straying from her aim of “connect[ing] the story of [McIndoe’s] work and its results to broader histories of Britain in the Second World War” (pp. 74–75), for the most part she supports her thesis. I did, however, wonder about the intricacies of the reconstructive process. Although I didn’t seek an overly technical medical explanation, I would have appreciated a greater level of detail, which would have made the work more interesting.

Readers who want a fuller understanding of the home front in Britain and its relationship to the air war of World War II will find that The Reconstruction of Warriors fills a gap in knowledge about a subject that has received too little attention or has been pushed aside. By the way, the “reconstructed warrior” who appears in a scene in the film The Battle of Britain was a real member of the Guinea Pig Club.

Chad Carter
Spanish Fork, Utah

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.