The Living Unknown Soldier

[john w.]

This is well worth the read, the story of a group of men and their return from the war.

All were repatriated except there were at least 6 who had no idea who they were. The French authorities had to work out how to find their families and there lay the rub, who laid claim to them..

A really good read and an eyeopener to.. Were there any British who were in the same state and if so what happened to them

Recommended

John

[marina]

Just finished reading this book. An incredible story - all the court cases and the rise of 'amnesia' literature, the absolute clinging to the fixation that Mangin was a relative in the teeth of all the evidence - what a horror it was. Had never heard of the starvation of the psychiatric patients during the Second War either.

There's another thread on the Forum - the conspiracy theory that soldiers were kept hidden in asylums and weren't really missing at all. I wonder if it was stories like Mangin's which gave rise to these rumours. There are a number of other such theories discussed in this book - it would seem that people would believe anything rather than that a relative was dead. Cerainly, according to this book, when relatives' claims to Mangin were denied, their automatic reaction seems to have been to accuse the authorities of the most outlandish crimes of concealment and malice.

Really good read!

Marina

[john w.]

The film a Very Long engagement touches on this story of Mangin, however our heroine didnt have all the court cases to wade through.

John

[marina]

I wondered about that when I read the book. But if it's based on that, they fairly saccharined the ending. Perhaps it was too unbearable.

Marina

[john w.]

I think that if we said it was 'loosley based' on aspects of the story then that might be the best way to put it.

John

[marina]

Agreed!

Marina

[Andrew Hesketh]

I've just got a copy of this and did a search to see if it had come up on the forum. Your recommendations are encouraging.

[Mark Hone]

I think that many families in Britain clung to the faint hope that their lost loved one was in fact a victim of amnesia. My grandmother repeated to me the belief among her family that her brother, my avatar, missing on the Somme, might be living on a French farm. The book and film 'Random Harvest' seem to have been a reflection of this popular legend. How many real amnesia cases there were I have no idea.