Courage and resourcefulness are common ingredients in these stories of World War I POWs. This book is recommended highly.

Spring 2020 issue of Over the Front

As featured in

Stand To! Western Front Association, October 2019

A moving tribute to extraordinary courage and tenacity rarely seen today.

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Julian Stockwin Blog

Article: Great War had its own great escapes part of 'Your Local Memories' feature

Kent Messenger (Maidstone & Weald), 9th May 2019 – words by Alan Smith

Instagram review via @Chiznoids

Chiznoids

This book will entertain you with stories full of adventurous implications on a topic, the escapes from the prison camps in the First World War, which few know.

Read the full Italian review here

Old Barbed Wire Blog

Competition as featured by

24 seven Lifestyle, April 2019

The author has assembled the first hand accounts of fifteen soldiers to illustrate the situation. As first hand accounts, they provide unique views from those who were involved. Their accounts are illustrated with plans and maps through the body of text and a photo-plate section with very rare images. A enthralling story with all the emotions, the trials, joys and disappointments.

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Firetrench

Following a series of talks on the BBC of great escapes of the first world war the decision was taken to publish these in book form. What a fascinating story they make, especially so as the stories are told ‘first hand’ by the men who made them and which capture the mood, mannerisms and culture of 100 years ago.
Each story is self contained and the inclusion of ‘what happened next’ to each of these men is a story in its own right. From escapes in Europe to long trails across Turkey, from England by Gunther Pluschow and escaping up the camp sewer the reader will find more than a ‘Boy’s Own Story’ but stories that will capture the imagination.
Rachel Bilton has done a fine editing job and the introduction by J.R. Ackerley, himself a POW introduces the book splendidly.

Royal Hampshire Regiment Museum

A collection of short and lively first-hand accounts of escape during the First World War, most of which are told from a British perspective with a few German ones included. Some of their endeavours were successful, others much less so, and employed a wide variety of escape methods; climbing over the wire, tunneling under it, picking locked doors, being smuggled out in laundry baskets, or walking out of the main gate disguised as a guard. They can read like a boys-own adventure and seem to make light of it all, yet it is clear that their position was extremely perilous and often relied heavily on luck, as the undernourished men moved through a hostile country towards a closely guarded neutral border which could be every bit as difficult to cross as breaking out of the camp. Unarmed and unaided with nothing to rely on but their wits, the dangers and challenges were enormous, and so these stories also provide an insight into the mindset of that rare individual who will voluntarily and eagerly embrace them, and risk everything to get home.

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Pegasus Archive