Soldier of Misfortune is the previously unpublished personal memoir of Martin Ferrey, who served as a front-line officer in No. 9 Commando in the Second World War. Martin provides an honest account of his military experience, ranging from the hilarious to the harrowing. His writing style is modest, humorous, and engaging. Martin, like so many other young men of the time, was not a professional soldier. He writes honestly about the difficulties he faced in coming to terms with military service, the repetition of seemingly mindless tasks, the perceived pettiness of training staff, and personality clashes with senior officers. While his modesty at times overshadows the reality of his experiences, private letters provided by the Ferrey family reveal the stark, painful truth of Martin's wounds received in action, and the unorthodox yet pioneering treatment received at the hands of a military psychologist. As a Commando officer, Martin encounters a myriad of fascinating historical characters throughout his service, such as Randolph Churchill, Evelyn Waugh, and Lord Mountbatten, not to mention an extensive cast of highly decorated soldiers famous within Britain's wartimes special forces. Included at the end of the book is a controversial article Martin submitted to the Daily Mirror a few years after the War's conclusion, in which he urges his fellow veterans to stop complaining about the hardships of adjusting once again to civilian life, and to just 'get on with it'. AUTHOR: Vincent Hunt is a documentary journalist and award-winning BBC producer. Crossing Latvia interviewing people who suffered at the hands of the KGB or fought against their system of totalitarian control he sets the political and social context of what Communism actually meant in this Baltic state: interrogation, surveillance, deportation and often death. This is his second book about Latvia's recent history, following on from Blood in the Forest - the end of the Second World War in the Courland Pocket (Helion 2017) which detailed the six desperate battles by German and Latvian forces to halt the Red Army advance into Latvia. His work explores pan-generational trauma, forgiveness and legacy, with the journey to see the landscape now an important part of understanding sorrow, loss and memorial for those left behind. His first book Fire and Ice (The History Press, 2014) was a journey across Arctic Norway meeting people affected by the Nazi scorched earth retreat of 1944 and the forced evacuation of the region. Along the way he discovered the shocking stories of 13,700 Soviet prisoners worked to death in sub-zero conditions or murdered by their Nazi captors. 20 b/w photos, 3 b/w maps
