All Soldiers Run Away: Alano's War - The Story of a British Deserter

All Soldiers Run Away: Alano’s War, the Story of a British Deserter is the tale of Alan Juniper’s wartime experiences in the North African and Italian Campaigns in WW2, as well as a wider look at the taboo subject of desertion both then and today.

From his first days with the Tower Hamlets Rifles in London to the scorching, unforgiving sands of North Africa, to that first, terrifying battle with Rommel and his Afrika Korps, we follow Alan Juniper through a series of intense and confusing encounters with the enemy and his eventual first desertion, subsequent incarceration, and grasp at a chance for freedom (in exchange for fighting in the Italian Campaign). Alan’s story presents a broken man in a broken landscape, struggling on in unbearable circumstances, from the brutality of night fighting in the hills of Perugia to another desertion and a period of unexpected peace in a small Umbrian village, where he is taken in by people who had, only months before, been the enemy.

All Soldiers Run Away is the search for Alan’s tale in lost battles, missing war diaries, and faded memories. Through his story and contrasting desertions, this text examines why the military and society condemns those who desert, and goes on to explore what duties soldiers have towards one another and their homelands. This story is indeed that of Alano’s war, but it is, just as much, the story of deserters in general, presenting a new perspective on that once-shamed act of desertion and asking the readers to come to new understanding of what it is we ask of our men and women in uniform.

This is a challenging book - it draws attention to a little discussed aspect of the Second World War, which has been quietly overlooked in the 70+ years since the war ended. Other than Vernon Scannell's Argument of Kings, I am not aware of another personal account that tackles the reasons and stories behind desertion during the war. For that reason alone, this is a valuable contribution to our understanding of the period, and the impact of war on those who experienced it.

Available from:
Lammi Publishing