The Last Escape: The Untold Story of Allied Prisoners of War in Europe 1944-45 - Softcover

Nichol, John; Rennell, Tony

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0142004472 ISBN 13: 9780142004470

Publisher: Penguin Books, 2004

Synopsis

Draws on the testimony of surviving veterans to relate the experiences of hundreds of thousands of American and British prisoners of war in camps across Nazi-controlled Europe, who were forced at gunpoint to march hundreds of miles along the Death March in the wake of the D-Day landings. Reprint.

About this title

About the Author

John Nichol is a journalist and widely quoted military commentator, as well as a former RAF flight lieutenant who became a POW during the first Gulf War. He is coauthor of the bestselling Tornado Down and the author of five novels.
Tony Rennell is the author of Last Days of Glory: The Death of Queen Victoria and coauthor of When Daddy Came Home. Now a freelance writer, he was formerly associate editor of the Sunday Times and the Mail on Sunday.

From Publishers Weekly

The author of Tornado Down, former RAF Flight Lt. Nichol was a Gulf War POW, while Last Days of Glory author Rennell is the former associate editor of the London Sunday Times. They cleverly weave WWII policy decisions dealing with POWs with firsthand accounts of POWs inside prison camps in Europe and during the forced evacuation marches many endured during the last months of the war. As the Russians advanced in summer 1944, POWs were crammed into boxcars (and, later, ships), attacked by guards in retaliation for Allied bombing of Germany and sent on extensive forced marches, described here in horrifying detail. As the war ended, some Red Cross relief convoys got through, but General Patton failed in an attempt to liberate a POW camp holding his son-in-law behind German lines. The reluctance of Russians to return liberated British and American POWs to the West was balanced by the issue of forced repatriation of former Soviet POWs who didn't want to return to the Stalinist state. Nichol and Rennell offer anecdotal evidence that some POWs were killed by the SS, and retribution by prisoners against brutal guards also occurred. In the postwar lives of a few POWs featured, incarceration took a physical and psychological toll. While offering little in the way of new information, and failing to cover fully the complete spectrum of prison camps and prisoner nationalities, the authors provide a compelling account of the ways, means and effects of mass imprisonment during the last terrible century.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0142004472
• ISBN 13: 9780142004470
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 544