Alan Wood (author)

[1] In the summer of 1940, after the end of the "Phoney War", Wood enlisted in the Royal Artillery as a volunteer and served as an anti-aircraft gunner during the London Blitz.

"[6] Wood's General Staff Intelligence career was ended when it was discovered that he was the author of Bless 'em All, as the result of the unpublished manuscript having been found in his luggage at Singapore in July 1941.

[7][8] In October 1943, Wood was in Sydney again, this time with Sir Walter Layton, chairman of the News Chronicle, and Samuel Storey as part of a "British newspaper mission" to Australia.

[12] While taking part in the Allied advance into Germany in March 1945, Wood lost a leg from an injury suffered in Operation Varsity.

[13][14] After the war, with a newly elected Labour government now in office, Wood approached John Strachey, the Minister of Food, and was hired to help establish a scheme to grow groundnuts in east Africa.

[1] On 21 September, they boarded RMS Strathmore, bound for Sydney, Australia, giving their address as 12, Ridgmount Gardens, London WC1.

[21] Wood was found to have an incurable brain disorder and died at the Atkinson Morley Hospital, Wimbledon on 27 October 1957, aged 43.

[22][23] At the time of his death, his home address was 8, Queens Gate Place, South Kensington, and probate on his estate valued at £7,492 was granted to his widow on 10 January 1958.

In a front page story, the Kensington News reported that the Coroner for Hammersmith had "returned a verdict of suicide whilst under considerable mental stress on Mrs Winifred Mary Wood, 39-year-old widow of author Alliot Allen Whitfield Wood",[26] and the Kensington Post added that following the death of her husband in October she had often been depressed.