The Great Escape

Those of you my age (72 next week) definitely remember the epic 1963 movie "The Great Escape" starring Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson, Donald Pleasence, James Coburn, David McCallum, and MANY others. I just watched it again on TV the other day. What I didn't fully realize was this movie was based on a very real WWII escape of 76 prisoners of war from a German camp in 1944. I just purchased the book for the library by Paul Brickhill of the same name as the move and first published in 1950. Brickhill was a prisoner in the camp and his is a first hand account of how they pulled this escape off. The account is fascinating to say the least! The descriptions of how they pulled the wool over the German's show more eyes is funny, amazing and in the end, tragic, for 50 of the escapees. show less

Brickhill wrote three classic books about real-life adventures from World War II, and this is--for my money--the best. It chronicles the inner workings of the biggest and most famous POW-camp breakout ever organized: three tunnels, dug simultaneously out of a supposedly escape-proof camp in the heart of Germany. Brickhill was a prisoner in the camp and a (very minor) player in the escape organization, and his story has an undeniable feel of authenticity as a result. The details that you (may) remember from the Hollywood version--stolen bed boards for tunnel shoring, electric lighting systems and wooden "railways" underground, forgers' and tailors' shops concealed in prison huts--are all described in detail here, since (no matter how show more implausible they may sound) they were all real. Written in the 1950s for a popular audience, Brickhill's books don't have the "heft" or the analytical edge of modern military histories by (say) Rick Atkinson or John Keegan, but they are absolutely unbeatable as inspiring true stories of courage and ingenuity. show less

Paul Brickhill’s The Great Escape is a riveting account of the escape of largely British and American prisoners from a World War II German prison camp. Brickhill ably details the remarkable determination and ingenuity that enabled such a daring endeavor.

The author of The Great Escape Paul Brickhill was a prisoner in the POW camp at Sagan so he knew many of the people portrayed in the book. It is a fantastic read, informative, insightful and entertaining. What starts off as a way to pass time and harass the Germans ends up with a very nasty sting in the tail. It is often understated, everything just so matter of fact, even their pain and horror at the outcome. What I also found most interesting was how closely the movie follows the book, I wasn't expecting that.

I am always fascinated with escape literature and this is a must-read. The persistence and fortitude shown by these men is amazing. The ablilty to forge papers, build tools and machines, all while in prison is compelling - and that is just getting ready to escape. The tunnelling is astonishing and terrifying to contemplate. Laying in such a tiny hole with barely any air and scraping away until sick to your stomach, these men were made of stern stuff. Fantastic story.

A gripping account of the Great Escapers and their fate. What comes across here most powerfully for me is the resourcefulness and ingenuity of the prisoners in making so much material to prepare for their escape using limited resources at their disposal, e.g. forged papers, compasses, air pipes and shoring for the tunnel, and so on. A true story of heroism. The cover of this edition has a picture of Steve McQueen on his motorbike, a fictional episode created for the wonderful film; indeed, no Americans took part in the breakout as they had all been moved to a neighbouring compound a few months earler, though many had taken part in the earlier tunnelling and other preparations.

As a fan of the movie, I had high hopes for the book, and I was certainly not let down. I wanted to know more of the details behind the digging of the tunnel; all the details that despite clocking in at 3 hours, the movie couldn't get into as it was focused on the many character stories. For example, the cans used for lighting and scooping dirt in the tunnels were called Klim cans. These were cans of powdered milk sent to prisoners by the Red Cross (Klim is Milk backwards). Or the theater stage the prisoners had for putting on plays, underneath which was a growing volume of tunnel dirt. It's those kind of details that will always make books, especially a firsthand account by someone who was there, a matchless medium in which to tell the show more story, no matter how much excitement Steve McQueen can bring to the screen. show less