Guerilla Surgeon: A New Zealand Surgeon's wartime experiences with Yugoslav Partisans: 1

WAR BRINGS strange fates to many men but to none more than Lindsay Rogers, a New Zealand surgeon who had been serving with the Eighth Army in the desert. He volunteered for special service in S.O.E. and then found himself set down on one dark night on the Isle of Vis, off the Dalmation coast. His job was to work as a surgeon among Yugoslav partisans; to fight with them, to tend the wounded and to act as an unofficial liaison officer between them and the Allied troops. For many months to come, in caves and deep in forests, up mountains, he brought all his skill as a surgeon, his staunch- ness and bravery as a serving soldier to his strange job. He was soon attached to the British Mission under Fitzroy Maclean, and was interviewed by Tito, who held him in the highest regard. In Guerilla Surgeon he tells his story−it is an inspiring and intensely exciting one -a story of sudden flights, of attacks by night, a story of incredibly brave men and, perhaps particularly, women. Above all it is the story of a man whose job it was to save life, not destroy it. And this job Lindsay Rogers performed under the most fantastic conditions, in makeshift shelters, with little or no equipment, sometimes with untrained assistants, and with the barriers of a different language and a different ideology between him and those amongst whom he work. Among many first hand stories of the war Guerilla Surgeon will stand out for its compassion and understanding of an alien people fighting for their freedom; for the integrity of a man who refused to compromise and whose name became a legend among those whom he served; and for the quiet modesty with which his story is told.