Name: The great escape
ISBN: 0783818165

Paul Brickhill

The great escape

Todd Luallen

I've seen the movie, but had yet to read the book. I'm glad I did. The book has stunning detail of what is truly an amazing accomplishment by such a large number of young airmen. There are a lot of names in this book, and it's really tough to remember who is who and what they're known for. So it's tough to really identify with many of the characters individually. There are a couple here and there that stick out because they're leaders or pivotal in some way. But that is my only criticism, and I don't think the book should have been written any other way. 

The treatment of the airmen by the German soldiers is definitely portrayed as being much better than most prisoners of war in other conflicts. Which is strange, because the treatment of the Jews by the German soldiers was clearly another story altogether. You can definitely see where spin-off comedies like "Hogan's Heroes" got the fuel for their German > Prisoner relationships by reading an account like this. It is definitely a completely different type of imprisonment than that of POW's captured by the Japanese.

I was also a bit surprised by how difficult it was for escaped prisoners with clothes and papers to get outside the country and find freedom. It's really a testimony of how locked down Germany was during war. When in doubt, they would arrest you. It's amazing that any made it out. It's probably been 20 years since I saw the movie, but I still remember how frustrated I was that so many were caught after escaping. I wanted a different ending to the movie. But that's just not the way it happened.

Dana Kraft

He thing I liked most about this book is that it reads more like source material than a story. The author seems to simply be telling you what happened and you can sense from the words how thing s shifts from almost “fun” to fear, terror and anger as events progress. I’ve seen the movie, but this was much better in terms of giving you a sense of things. It is truly amazing how much these guys did in captivity. The few quotes among many I liked were:

“Floods found Roger out on the circuit and told him the news. Roger said one exceptionally rude word and was calm again.” P. 44
“It wasn’t like he didn’t like tunnels any more, but when you live in a room with a tunnel, the tunnel is the boss.” P. 45
‘“It’s like this,” Russell in 103 said to a new prisoner. “If you see me walking around with a tree trunk sticking out of my arse, don’t stare. I’ll be doing it for a good cause.”’ P. 50
“Hitler has said that if you tell a big enough lie, people will believe it, but he rather overlooked the fact that once the lie is exposed, everything else you’ve said is also disbelieved. It wasn’t hard to get a German to believe that Hitler wasn’t the angel of virtue, and then the rest of his edifice of wishful faith came tumbling down.” P. 61

The great escape

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