Second World War veteran finally tells his war stories in Shrapnel

A soldier who fought in the Second World War finally unburdens himself of some long-suppressed guilt

Shrapnel
William Wharton
The Friday Project

Shrapnel, a previously lost memoir by William Wharton, acclaimed author of Birdy and A Midnight Clear, reads as a nontherapeutic confession of sorts - a shockingly honest and fractured tale of humanity and the sickening vainglories of war.

Having joined the army as a teenager, Wharton's frank prose tells an uncomfortable tale of the absurdity that is war, including D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge, his personal role in the killing of German prisoners and finally carrying us shamefully through postwar looting, rape and murder.

It is the brave and unembellished story he has never told. Not even to his own children.

"When dug up, the buried guilts of youth smell of dirty rags and old blood. I did not tell these stories to my children. My ego wasn't strong enough to handle it then, perhaps it isn't even now. We shall see."

Wharton is, above all, a talented storyteller who manages, despite an often grim and uncomplimentary portrayal of himself and his fellow soldiers, to hold our compassion. He writes: "I still have a hard time facing up to it inside myself."

What Shrapnel does, as many memoirs of war do, is to challenge our own moral standings - causing us to question if we would have acted any differently. Which is perhaps why it is such a discomforting read.