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Escape from Germany: The Greatest POW Break-Out of the First World War
Escape from Germany The Greatest POW BreakOut of the First World War Author:Neil Hanson It's July, 1918. The most heavily guarded POW camp in the world. Surrounded by steel palisades and barbed-wire fences, patrolled by ferocious dogs and armed guards with orders to shoot to kill, Holzminden was a brutal punishment camp. To escape would take boundless ingenuity and nerves of steel. Many tried. Prisoners used sardine-tin openers to ... more »pick locks, forged documents, sent messages using milk as an invisible ink, and created fake uniforms and elaborate disguises. Every attempt failed, leading only to ever-tighter defences. But on the night of 23 July 1918, twenty-nine undaunted Allied prisoners achieved the impossible. They had spent nine months using cutlery to move tonnes of earth, clay and stone, digging a tunnel over 150 feet long under the walls and barbed-wire fences, to the farmland beyond. This is the fascinating story of how they did it - and of the many who had failed before them. Neil Hanson provides a rare insight into the minds of these prisoners of war, revealing their resourcefulness, courage and persistence - and inexhaustible good humour.« less