Milligan - Adolf Hitler: My Part in his Downfall

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First published by Michael Joseph 1971
Published in Penguin Books 1972
Reissued in this edition 2012

Copyright Spike Milligan Productions Ltd, 1971
All rights reserved

ISBN: 978-0-24-196615-0

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Spike Milligan was one of the greatest and most influential comedians of the twentieth century. Born in India in 1918, he was educated in India and England before joining the Royal Artillery at the start of the Second World War and serving in North Africa and Italy. At the end of the war, he forged a career as a jazz musician, sketch-show writer and performer, touring Europe with the Bill Hall Trio and the Ann Lenner Trio, before joining forces with, among others, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe, to create the legendary Goon Show. Broadcast on BBC Radio, the ten series of the Goon Show ran from 1951 until 1960 and brought Spike to international fame, as well as to the edge of sanity and the break-up of his first marriage. He had subsequent success as a stage and film actor, as the author of over eighty books of fiction, memoir, poetry, plays, cartoons and childrens stories, and with his long-running one-man show. In 1992 he was made a CBE and in 2001 an honorary KBE, and in 2000 and 2001 he received two Lifetime Achievement Awards for writing and for comedy. He died in 2002.

I dedicate this book to Norma Farnes, my manager, who puts up with me

I am grateful to John Counsell for permission to quote from his book, COUNSELLS OPINION; and to the Director of the Imperial War Museum for permission to reproduce three photographs in the Museums possession.

Spike Milligan would like to state that Gunner Donald mentioned in this book is a fictitious character, and has no relationship to Gunner Len Donald, who was in the Battery in the early days of the war. In previous volumes he believes I was referring to him in this book, when in fact the name was not intended that way.

This book is the first volume of a trilogy. It will cover the time of my joining the Artillery till the time we landed at Algiers. Volume II will cover from going into action till VJ day. Volume III will cover from my demob to my eventual return to England. All the salient facts are true, I have garnished some of them in my own manner, but the basic facts are, as I say, true. I have used the simple language of the barrack room and used the normal quota of swearing. Some of the revelations are very bawdy but these I have told exactly as they happened. It wasnt all fun, but as you will see, a lot of it was. The experience of being in the Army changed my whole life, I never believed that an organization such as ours could ever go to war, leave alone win it. It was, as Yeats remarked of the Easter Rising, A terrible beauty. There were the deaths of some of my friends, and therefore, no matter how funny I tried to make this book, that will always be at the back of my mind: but, were they alive today, they would have been first to join in the laughter, and that laughter was, Im sure, the key to victory.

After Puckoon I swore I would never write another novel. This is it

September 3rd, 1939. The last minutes of peace ticking away. Father and I were watching Mother digging our air-raid shelter. Shes a great little woman, said Father. And getting smaller all the time, I added. Two minutes later, a man called Chamberlain who did Prime Minister impressions spoke on the wireless; he said, As from eleven oclock we are at war with Germany. (I loved the WE.) War? said Mother. It must have been something we said, said Father. The people next door panicked, burnt their post office books and took in the washing:

The air-raid shelter my mother built for the family. The face is my fathers

Giant troop-carrying submarines

Almost immediately came the mournful wail of the first Air-Raid Warning. Is that you dear? said Mother. Its a Jewish Funeral, said Father, Quick! Put out the begging bowls. It was in fact the Bata Shoe Factory lunch hooter. It caused chaos until it was changed. Uncle Willie, a pre-death mortician, who hadnt worked for years, started making small wooden mushrooms. He sent them to Air-Marshal Harris requesting they be dropped on Germany to prove that despite five days of war, British craftsmanship still flourished. They were returned with a note saying, Dropping wooden mushrooms during raids might cause unnecessary injury. My brother Desmond too, seized with pre-pubic patriotism, drew pictures of fantastic war machines. He showed Father: Son, he said, these inventions will be the salvation of England. They wasted no time: carrying the portfolio of drawings in a string bag, they hurried to Whitehall by 74 tram. After several arguments and a scuffle, they were shown into the presence of a curious nose-manipulating Colonel. He watched puzzled as Father laid out drawings of Troop-Carrying Submarines, Tank-Carrying Zeppelins and some of Troops on Rocket-Propelled Skates, all drawn on the backs of old dinner menus. Right, said the Colonel, Ill have the brown windsor, roast beef and two veg. Father and son were then shown the door, the windows, and finally the street. My father objected. You fool! By rejecting these inventions youve put two years on the war. Good, said the Colonel, I wasnt doing anything! Father left. With head held high and feet held higher, he was thrown out.

Giant troop-carrying airships