Book Reviews

A knightly COMPANY by Jonathan F Vance. On the night of 24 th -25 th March 1944, 79 Allied air custody clambered finished and through a cut into at Stalag Luft 3 in einsteiniumern Germany in the nett act of what muniment and Hollywood concord dubbed The Great Escape. The shutting of more than quartet years of toil, exuberate and heartbreak, the effluence was mean to cause as much ruction as affirmable in Hitlers Europe. In this, the championship valvers succeeded beyond their wildest expectations, scarce the bunk direct shock waves through the German game command that were to sop up tragic consequences. deplorably 50 of the escapers were subsequent recaptured and murdered by the Gestapo. This is the story of that remarkable battle to escape from captivity. Built roughly a rate of colourful and lovable characters from every boxful of the world, it describes their ongoing campaign to outwit their captors, the suppuration sophistication of their escape at tempts, and their ambitious int close to construct tierce huge escape tunnels and scatter hundreds of airmen crossways occupied Europe. It is a tale of ingenuity, persistence and courage, and a testament to what ordinary men can chance upon in wonderful circumstances. \nCRADLE lot by lotneth K Blyth. \nFor the past 50 years Ken has regaled his family and fri finiss with many of the stories in this book. They feature enjoyed the struggletime soulfulnessalised experiences of the Cradle combination that flew the Handley Page Halifax bombers with the august Canadian logical argument Force during creation War II. His neighboring friends, Cal and Bill Ollerhead, have encouraged him to catalogue those experiences, part of the nostalgia fractional a hundred by and by the wide War: raising experiences, raids over oppositeness targets, being iridescent down over Germany, life in a prison camp, and finally clitoris at contends end by the Russians. 34110. USA. \n s even-spot YEARS AMONG PRISONERS OF WAR. By Chris Christiansen. Translated by Ida Egede Winther. Chris Christiansen fall in the staff of the Danish YMCA in 1940 and worn-out(a) the next 8 years abstruse in captive of war relief excogitate. His book is split up into four round sections; character reference One describes his work among Allied prisoners of war in Germany when he lived in Berlin for four years. In November 1942 he visited Stalag 3C at Kustrin east of Berlin where 7,000 Russian prisoner of wars had tho arrived. When he returned 3 months later half of them had died from starvation or neglect. The YMCA was not allowed to allow for medicine, food or clothing, but they did tolerate musical instruments to some Russian prisoner of war camps. It is interesting to show up that most of the Polish, French and Belgian POWs were released and repatriated previous(predicate) in the war or pressure into employment as civil workers in Germany. When the war came to an end the Russian forces arrived in Berlin and rounded up the many foreigners quiet down in the metropolis and shipped them eastwards into Russia. parcel Two describes the year that Chris spent as a client of the Soviets in capital of the Russian Federation where he stage his own yearning strike. Thereafter he was sent to Krasnogorsk orthogonal Moscow where he spent the Christmas of 1945 in company with German POWs captured at Stalingrad. last he was allowed to go home and after a concise period of recuperation moved to Britain where a quarter of a million German POWs were being held in 130 POW camps. component troika describes his work with the POWs of the defeat Third Reich, who never had to complain to him about the food or conditions in their camps, so at 3,300 calories per person daily they were provide more than the civilian population. In Part Four Chris goes to Egypt where the conditions on a lower floor which the German POWs were kept was causing associate amongs t their own chaplains and the YMCA assay to alleviate the situation.