The Great Escape | Paul Brickhill | my dad was one of the pow's who escaped

The Great Escape | Paul Brickhill | A fun but tragic true story

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The Great Escape

	The Great Escape Paul Brickhill Fawcett, 1986 - 256 pages average customer review:based on 53 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

my dad was one of the pow's who escaped

I'm writing you about a man named Steve Martin who came to my house last evening to show me his collection of 'Great Escape' original material. As you know, my father was the first Canadian Prisoner of war and was #68 of the 76 who escaped. This is how he came to call me up for this meeting. I was completely blown away by his collection. He has a rare letter from BIG X, Roger Bushell, who of course was the leader of escape. He has a tile from the Harry tunnel, that the stove was resting on, tons of stuff on Wally Floody, who engineered the escape and became friends with Steve. Also pictures of George Harsh, if you're a historian you should know this name or research it, and Johnny Dodge [the artful dodger]. The list go on. He even has sand from the tunnel. He's 42yrs old and when he was 12 he read Paul Brichman's 'The Great Escape' and got hooked and has been collecting ever since . He's gone to their reunions and has several letters and autographs. He has a museum of history pertaining to the 'Great Escape'. I can't even get close to telling you what he showed me and he said that was nothing compared to his complete set. I urged him to get a web page set up to which he has very little experience with computors. This man has a gold mine and needs direction. I don't know how interested you'd be in this project but if you know of someone who would be please let me know. His phone number is#905-824-7367. If this amazing part of history is at all intriguing to you, you'll be as blown away as I was. Nonie Crete

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A fun but tragic true story

Paul Brickhill, based on his actual experiences in a prison camp and using characters based on real life POW's, takes the reader behind the wire at a World War II prison camp. These men were trapped, unable to fight for their country in battle, so they found a way to do the next best thing. Led by Roger Bushell, they formed the X organization, a group of the most intelligent and resourceful prisoners from the British and American air forces. Using only their wits and the few materials available, they devised and executed a plan to tunnel under the fences and escape into Nazi Germany. Unfortunately this led to fifty of the escapees being shot by the Gestapo, but Brickhill does credit to their memory with this book. Using a light writing style, humorous anecdotes, and fascinating descriptions, Brickhill has created an entirely readable adventure with charismatic protagonists who gain the readers respect and sympathy from page one.

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Thrilling Yet Sad

I first read the book when I was 13 in 1968. The creativity of the prisoners was a thrill to read.

Sad that 50 of them were murdered by the Germans.

Wow!

When I was in school, a teacher assigned us this book.

I was fascinated. They made compass cases out of melted phonograph records! They made air tubes out of hundreds of cans! They hid tunnels everywhere! And it was all TRUE!!!

Unfortunately for me, the rest of the class whined that the book was boring (!!!) and the teacher had us turn them in. He had to pry mine out of my fingers. Years later, I was finally able to get a copy of the book, and it was worth it.

I'd like to list the truly amazing things they did to escape the Nazi prisoner-of-war camp, but I wouldn't want to spoil the book for anybody.

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Top Class

I bought this book in a jumble sale 21 years ago, and found it really gripping. Two decades on, I'm thinking of rereading it, one of the all time classics that inspired a classic film. Try "Dam Busters" too.

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, page 9, 10, 11

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