The Guinea Pig Club cover art

The Guinea Pig Club

Archibald McIndoe and the RAF in World War II

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The Guinea Pig Club

By: Emily Mayhew
Narrated by: Karen Cass
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About this listen

The history of the Guinea Pig Club, the band of airmen who were seriously burned in aeroplane fires, is a truly inspiring, spine-tingling tale. Plastic surgery was in its infancy before the Second World War. The most rudimentary techniques were known only to a few surgeons worldwide.

The Allies were tremendously fortunate in having maverick surgeon Archibald McIndoe - nicknamed ‘the Boss’, or ‘the Maestro’ - operating at a small hospital in East Grinstead in the south of England. McIndoe constructed a medical infrastructure from scratch.

After arguing with his superiors, he set up a revolutionary new treatment regime. Uniquely concerned with the social environment, or holistic care, McIndoe also enlisted the help of the local civilian population. He rightly secured his group of patients, dubbed the ‘Guinea Pig Club’, an honoured place in society as heroes of Britain’s war.

©2018 Emily Mayhew (P)2019 Aurora Audio Books 20th Century Air Forces Armed Forces Engineering Military Modern Aviation War

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Most relevant
Was hoping for information about the Guinea pig club and their treatment. It was two hours into the narration before the Guinea pig club got brought into the story. Lots of reading out of lists. Some parts were really interesting some quite dry. The same female narrator does voices for all ‘characters’ with varying degrees of success

Wasn’t what I expected / hoped for

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A book that I thought would be about The GPC, Mkindoe and his story turns out to be a a general history of the development of warfare and safety within Bomber and fighter Command during WWII. This in itself is not uninteresting, although a year by year itemisation of casualty figures felt more like the Lancet, it is not the in depth account I signed up for. That is not to say that the traumatic accounts within are not incredible but I do believe a lot of the repeated info regarding aircraft and their danger during the war is not only superfluous but also a little patronising. Got halfway through before frustration sent me to another book. I also think that the narration is quite dull and sounds almost artificial at times. Disappointing all round.

A confusion.

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