The Longest Tunnel: The True Story Of World War Ii's Great Escape

The Longest Tunnel: The True Story of World War Ii's Great Escape

From School Library JournalYA-- The escape of 76 Allied POWs from Sagan, Stalag Luft III, on March 24, 1944 was accomplished by a 350-foot tunnel hand dug under the prison camp grounds. This dramatic narration of the frustrations, dangers, fears, and tensions is based on previously unavailable camp records and interviews with survivors. Fictionalized dialogue defines characters and intensity of activity. The POW's freedom was short-lived with Hitler ordering their recapture and execution. The postwar search for the Gestapo who carried out the fatal orders recounts the fate that met the international group of officers and crewmen. Paul Brickhill's Great Escape (Fawcett, 1986) also relates the tunnel escape efforts but is not as complete.-Julia M. Losinski, formerly at Prince George's County Memorial Library System, Hyattsville, MDCopyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.This is the true story behind The Great Escape, the classic World War II movie based on a book of the same title by Paul Brickhill. Using sources not available to Brickhill, Alan Burgess chronicles here details of the real escape, which prove to be even more gripping than those fictionalized on film. He describes the night of 24 March 1944, when seventy-six Allied POWs slid through a 350-foot tunnel and out of a high-security German prison camp into history. Within days fifty had been executed on Hitler's orders and twenty-three others captured and returned to the camp. Just three made it to Allied lines, and their harrowing stories of survival and postwar efforts to bring the Gestapo killers to justice make memorable reading.From Publishers WeeklyReaders of Paul Brickhill's The Great Escape will recall the story of the tunnel breakout of 76 Allied airmen from a German POW camp as one of the war's most suspenseful and dramatic episodes. With the help of interviews and newly uncovered German documents, Burgess here fills in the details of the planning and construction of the tunnel, the elaborate preparations for life on the run, the efforts of the camp administration to locate the tunnel and the escape itself on the night of March 23, 1944. He covers the fate of individual escapees and the story of how a small group of men from the RAF Special Investigation Branch tracked down former Gestapo personnel after the war and brought them to justice for the murder of the 50 airmen who were recaptured. (Only three escapees achieved the "home run.") Burgess, former R.A.F. flyer and co-author with David Berman of My Story , has shaped an enthralling narrative that is also a tribute to human courage and resourcefulness. Photos.Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.From Library JournalIn a work complementing Paul Brickhill's classic, The Great Escape (LJ 9/1/50), ex-RAF flyer Burgess focuses less on the actual breakout of 76 Allied airmen from Stalag Luft II than on the escape's matrix and its consequences. He presents the escape as a military operation intended to disrupt the German war effort. Hitler responded by ordering that recaptured prisoners be turned over to the Gestapo for execution. Not every escapee, however, was summarily shot. In describing the survivors' fates, Burgess offers useful insight into the haphazard nature of the Nazi regime in its final months. And his account of the roundup and punishment of those responsible for the murders demonstrates the difficulties of pursuing war criminals in the postwar chaos. Recommended, particularly in conjunction with Arthur A. Durand's Stalag Luft III ( LJ 6/1/88).- D.E. Showalter, Colorado Coll., Colorado SpringsCopyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.