Longest Tunnel: True Story Of World War II's Great Escape - Softcover

Burgess, Alan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1591140978 ISBN 13: 9781591140979

Publisher: Naval Inst Pr, 2004

Synopsis

Book by Burgess, Alan

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

Readers 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 Journal:

In 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 Springs
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Naval Inst Pr
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1591140978
• ISBN 13: 9781591140979
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 289