Paul Brickhill
Amazon Price: $11.16
List Price: $13.95
Usually ships in 24 hours
By: W. W. Norton & Company
Amazon Marketplace: 50
new & used starting at $7.00
|
Buy at Amazon.com
|
Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Historical -> British -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Historical -> British -> General AAS
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Leaders & Notable People -> Military -> General
Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 53
Average rating: 5.0 of 5
Gripping 4 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.
This is the (true) story of the efforts of a multinational group of POWs to escape during WW2, and led to what is one of my favourite films.
I anticipated the book to be a bit of a let down after seeing the movie, but it really wasn't. They emphasize quite different aspects, and some parts of the movie were clearly made up with entertainment value in mind (people jumping motorcycles over fences for instance!). I can't blame the movie makers of course, because the compelling essence of this story is the daily slog of tunnelling set against the backdrop of the mind-numbing drudgery of incarceration. No movie could be long enough to get this point across, but the book allows one to build up a better picture of what captivity was like, particularly because it provides such incredible details. I was really struck by the ingenious ways the prisoners found to fake German uniforms and official passes, improvise tools, and build radios and other vital pieces of equipment. The book provides sufficient descriptions to allow you to get an impression of the main characters and camp layout, though I personally would have enjoyed a few photographs of the people involved (good and bad), though I realise these wouldn't have been easy to obtain.
The author has a relatively dry style typical of a historian rather than a dramatist, and at times relates key events remarkably passionately. The book ratchets up the tension without having to try too hard however, and I could sense the tension that existed whenever the guards entered the barracks to check for tunnels. The depression that accompanies every uncovered tunnel jumps out of the page, as does the resolve to keep trying to escape without ever accepting captivity.
I was also pleased that the author described the events some time after the final escape, so that I could see how thoroughly the Allied authorities pursued the main protagonists, and what was their evetual fate.
This book was a fine testament to the memory of the brave men who didn't wilt despite literally years of incarceration in conditions that can best be desribed as spartan. If they had all died without anyone knowing their story the world would be a poorer place.
Editorial Review:
"A tense, thrilling, fabulous tale."—Philadelphia Inquirer They were American and British air force officers in a German prison camp. With only their bare hands and the crudest of homemade tools, they sank shafts, forged passports, faked weapons, and tailored German uniforms and civilian clothes. They developed a fantastic security system to protect themselves from German surveillance. It was a split-second operation as delicate and as deadly as a time bomb. It demanded the concentrated devotion and vigilance of more than six hundred men—every one of them, every minute, every hour, every day and night for more than a year. Made into the classic movie starring Steve McQueen. 16 pages of photographs.
