Escape From Germany - Rilegato

Hanson, Neil

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0385612044 ISBN 13: 9780385612043

Casa editrice: Doubleday, 2011

Riassunto

July, 1918. Surrounded by steel palisades and barbed-wire fences, Holzminden was the most heavily guarded POW camp in the world. Patrolled by ferocious dogs and armed guards with orders to shoot to kill, it was a brutal punishment camp, housing 700 prisoners of all nationalities. To escape would take boundless ingenuity and nerves of steel.

Many tried. Prisoners used sardine-tin openers to pick locks, forged documents, sent messages using milk as an invisible ink, and created fake uniforms and elaborate disguises - one even impersonated the notorious camp commandant. Every attempt failed, leading only to ever-tighter defences.

But on the night of 23 July 1918, twenty-nine undaunted Allied prisoners achieved the impossible. They had spent nine months using knives and spoons to move tonnes of earth, clay and stone, digging a tunnel over 150 feet long through the foundations of the barracks and under the walls and barbed-wire fences, to the farmland beyond.

This is the fascinating story of how they did it - and of the many who had failed before them. Neil Hanson provides a rare insight into the minds of these prisoners of war, revealing their resourcefulness, courage and persistence - and inexhaustible good humour.

Su questo libro

Recensione:

"This brilliant and dramatic account is a fitting testament to a heroic episode in a war that has for too long been simplified as nothing more than the mud and blood of the trenches." (The Good Book Guide)

Descrizione del libro:

The greatest WWI escape story from Germany's most notorious prisoner-of-war camp

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Doubleday
• Data di pubblicazione: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0385612044
• ISBN 13: 9780385612043
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 336