War stories : a memoir of Nigeria and Biafra / John Sherman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sherman, John, 1944-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

History.

Nigeria--History--Civil War, 1967-1970.

Nigeria.

Nigeria, Eastern--History.

Nigeria, Eastern.

Sherman, John.

Eastern Nigeria.

Peace Corps (U.S.). Africa Region.

Peace Corps (U.S.).

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

vii, 122 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Indianapolis, IN : Mes Verde Press, [2002]

Summary:

War Stories: A Memoir of Nigeria and Biafra began as a journal kept by the author while he was a member of a food/medical team operated by the International Committee of the Red Cross during the Nigerian Civil War. John Sherman first arrived in Nigeria in 1966 as a Peace Corps Volunteer, assigned to teach English at a secondary school in the country's Eastern Region. Less than a year later, he and the other Volunteers were evacuated from what had become the secessionist Republic of Biafra. The Nigerian army had invaded Biafra, beginning what would become a two-and-a-half-year civil war. Sherman remained with the Peace Corps and was reassigned to teach in Malawi, a country in southeastern Africa. During his year there, he and the rest of the world witnessed the desperate situation created by the civil war as pictures of starving children and other stark images of the conflict appeared in the media around the globe. Interrupting his Peace Corps service, he left Malawi in 1968 and returned to West Africa. He intended to enter Biafra, but was unable to do so. Instead, upon his arrival in Nigeria, he joined the relief effort on that side of the war. He first worked at the airport in Lagos, Nigeria's capital, then he was sent to the war zone. He joined a team consisting of a doctor, two nurses and a group of Nigerian Red Cross members who distributed food. The team operated clinics and feeding stations in towns and villages north of Port Harcourt, in an area that had, briefly, been a part of Biafra. They provided aid to thousands of people every week. War Stories serves as his memoir of those months in 1968 and 1969, with flashbacks to his Peace Corps experiences in the same area of Nigeria.

Contents:

Chronology of Events: Nigeria & Biafra, 1960-1970 i

Africa v

Nigeria vi

Biafra vii

Chapter 1 August 1968-Lagos 1

Chapter 2 September 1968-Lagos 15

Chapter 3 October 1968-Lagos 31

Chapter 4 November 1968-Elele 51

Chapter 5 December 1968-Owerri 67

Chapter 6 January 1969-Elele 79

Chapter 7 February 1969-Elele 95

Chapter 8 March 1969-Elele 105

Chapter 9 April 1969-Rome 111

Epilogue: January 1970-Calumet City, Illinois 117.

ISBN:

0960722025 :

OCLC:

50994695