Penguin Michael Joseph pre-empts veteran Humphreys’ memoir co-written with Tootal

Penguin Michael Joseph (PMJ) has acquired a memoir by Lieutenant Colonel John Humphreys, the last known surviving veteran of the fight for Arnhem’s ‘bridge too far’ in September 1944.

Publishing director Rowland White pre-empted world rights from Phil Patterson at Marjacq. Now 101 years old, Humphreys is collaborating with author and former 3 PARA commanding officer Stuart Tootal, to tell his “extraordinary” story for the first time.  It will be published in September 2024 to coincide with the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Arnhem.

The publisher’s description reads: “After joining the army in 1936 aged just 14, John Humphreys deployed to North Africa with the Royal Engineers, fighting with the Desert Rats for a year before he was captured when Tobruk fell in the summer of 1942. After escaping from an Italian Prisoner of War (POW) camp he made his way across over 400 miles of enemy territory before reaching safety.  Frustrated to be away from the fighting on his return to the UK, he volunteered for parachute training.

“Dropping with the 2nd Battalion of the Parachute Regiment (2 PARA) he reached the bridge ahead of the main force of airborne troops assigned to Operation Market Garden, which 2 PARA were tasked to hold for 36 hours until relieved by the advancing 2nd British Army.  Four days later after bitter close-quarter fighting, exhausted, out of ammunition, and with the majority of his small unit dead or wounded, they were finally overwhelmed by a vastly superior SS force.  A POW for a second time, he once again escaped the clutches of the enemy and made his way back from a POW camp in Germany to Allied lines.”

Humphreys retired from the army after 47 years of military service, which included serving in Palestine, Aden, Northern Ireland, with the SAS, and in Germany during the height of the Cold War, where he was awarded an OBE.  He was also mentioned in dispatches twice for gallantry in North Africa and Tobruk.  He now lives as a Gentleman Pensioner at the Royal Hospital Chelsea.

He said he wanted to "set my story down before it is too late".

Tootal said: “Representing the very edge of living history, John is the last living witness to actually fight at the infamous bridge at Arnhem, which is one of the greatest acts of courage and fortitude in the Second World War.  As a former Para, I know that John and his generation set the standard for paratroopers and I could not feel more privileged to be writing his epic story with him.”

White added: “John’s war somehow manages to combine the best elements of a whole raft of classic war stories, from George Macdonald Fraser’s seminal Quartered Safe Out Here to ’The Great Escape’ and, obviously, the epic ’A Bridge Too Far’.  Spirited, powerful and rich with kind of detail that only someone who was there can provide, John’s book is at once a precious historical record and an unputdownable, frankly jaw-dropping real-life adventure action story.”