Thursday, December 13, 2012

Raymond Chandler biographers' alert : his entire war records posted online

Sgt Ray Chandler, SIR !!
Perhaps a fan of Raymond Chandler at the Public Archives of Canada, exasperated beyond measure by all the bosh written by Chandler biographers about his war record in the Canadian Army in WWI, has decided to set the record straight by posting all his military records online, free for the downloading.

Since "1940s Chivalry" (what an oxymoron !) is the most important meme in my book de-bunking the current myth of wartime penicillin, I am deeply interested myself in Chandler's WWI experiences in the Canadian infantry.


Down the mean corridors of wartime medicine....


This is because Chandler, alone and along with the subject my wartime penicillin book (Dr Henry Dawson) , was about the only public proponent of chivalry during WWII.

("The Big Sleep" and all of the Philip Marlowe series.)

And yes, Dawson too served in the Canadian Army Infantry about the same time as Chandler and he too implied it was the most formative event in his life.

Conventionally it is said that chivalry died in the aftermath of the millions of moderns who experienced the inhumanity and machine-like nature of modern war on the Western front.

These two men did experience warfare there at its harshest but came away perhaps more on fire for chivalry than before.

Something isn't adding up and I aim to ferret the truth out....

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