Jimmy James

This book is a collection of escape stories told by a British prisoner of war. Shot down over Holland in the summer of 1940, the author was imprisoned with other British and Allied officers in various camps around Germany until the end of the war with Germany in 1945.

During these many years he engaged in several escape attempts, some of which got him out of prison, but he was always recaptured. Toward the end of the war he was lucky not to have been shot by the increasingly desperate German captors. He was part of the Great Escape from Stalag Luft III that was later portrayed in the popular film.

The book is a page turner as the reader follows the ingenuity and passion of the prisoners in plotting various escapes. There were only three ways: tunnelling, walking out the gates, and scaling the walls and wire.

The author often overloads his narrative with details about servicemen and their records that would interest only military buffs and fellow officers. Nevertheless I highly recommended this book to the general reader for the fascinating subject matter.… (meer)