Read March 2019. Non-fiction.
Publication date: 31st March 2019.
Probably most people know something of the story behind this book, as the 1963 film The Great Escape continues to be a stalwart of the Christmas television schedules every year.
No Steve McQueen jumping the wire on a motorbike, or Donald Pleasence losing his eyesight while poring over forged documents here, but the true story behind this audacious, and largest, escape of captured Allied soldiers from a prisoner of war camp during World War II, is amazing nonetheless.
On the night of 24th March 1944, a small army of soldiers escaped from the prisoner of war camp Stalag Luft III, in eastern Germany. Seventy-nine made it outside the wire, but only three made it outside of Nazi Germany. Most were recaptured within days.
It is not just the size of this operation that makes it famous, but the awful fact that fifty of these escapees were tragically executed afterwards by the Gestapo on Hitler's orders, against the regulations laid down by The Geneva Convention.
Jonathan Vance tells this tale of the battle between the captured soldiers and their wardens most skillfully and he has obviously researched his subject thoroughly. I really liked that the main players are introduced by telling a bit about their background stories and how they came to find themselves in Stalag Luft III, The story of how the escape developed really draws you in too, and you hold your breath with the soldiers themselves, each time a team of guards attempts to ferret out their plans.
I did not know anything about what happened after the escape itself, other than that many of the soldiers were executed and very few made it "home", so it was very interesting to read about the events that followed - where the escapees were taken, their further adventures, the international condemnation of the executions, and the trials that followed World War II.
This book is fascinating, sad and very accessible for anyone who thinks that military history is dry as dust! This book is superb, Professor Vance!
What strikes me most about this story is the amazing courage, perseverance and ingenuity of the men who were prisoners of war in these camps. Their intelligence, inventiveness and humour under very difficult conditions was incredible and inspiring.
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