4 June 2021 - I finished this interesting read off this afternoon.
It tells the true story of two English soldiers, Fred Foster and Anthony Coulthard, who escaped from Stalag XXA in Nazi-occupied Poland. Their achievement was more remarkable as they didn't take the most direct route home, instead they travelled by train into Berlin, and all the way across Third Reich Germany to the Swiss border.
The Soldier Who Came Back: by Steve Foster - Amazon
How much do you know about prisoners of war(POW) during WWII, and the chaos and confusion they endured in Europe in the final months on forced marches?
This book focuses on the forced 'death' marches from POW camps during that period. Prisoners and their guards trudged often hundreds of miles on next-to-nothing rations or what they could scavenge on their way. Why? is never clearly explained then, or now. Many fell by the wayside and were either left to die or mercilessly shot.
At Gresse, a column of marching Allied POW's under guard managed to get some Red Cross parcels and was enjoying those when tragedy struck; RAF Tornadoes bore down on them creating carnage — a cruel fate for a serviceman who may have been a prisoner during the previous 4 years. The chaos and confusion of those deplorable marches need to be read to be understood more.
The Last Escape: John Nichol - Amazon
Under the Nuremberg laws of 1935, Austrian Jews were stripped of their citizenship. Anti-Semitism under the Nazis grew to a crescendo. Gustav and Fritz, father and son, are among the first to be deported to Buchenwald. From Gustav's diaries and Fritz's recollections, together with corroborative evidence drawn from a multitude of sources, Jeremy Dronfield tells the story of their long-suffering, and their ability to stay alive and stay together as much as possible, despite the overwhelming odds.
The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz: Jeremy Dronfield - Amazon
British POWs at Auschwitz ... "On the short walk to the workplace, they would pass any number of Jewish corpses, beaten to death where they had fallen. They would witness many of the beatings, but knew now the price of interference was death. Once at work, they were never out of earshot of men and women screaming. It was a constant torment in the background."
The Saboteur of Auschwitz: The Inspiring True Story of a British Soldier Held Prisoner in Auschwitz: Colin Rushton Amazon
A heroic true tale.
In 1939 Slavomir was arrested by Russians, brutally treated, and a kangaroo court saw him sentenced to 25 years' hard labour in Siberia. Escaping with some fellow inmates, they walked south, crossing Siberia, the Gobi Desert and the Himalayas.
A great true story of heroism, adventure, survival and escape.
The Long Walk Back: Slavomir Rawicz - Amazon
When you think about it, Stuka's played a huge role in the European warzone during WWII and their killing power was enormous in scale compared to the losses their squadrons suffered.
In this pilot's eye view, we're taken in acute detail through the battlefield theatres of the Blitzkrieg in France, attacks on the British retreat from Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, the bombing of Malta, escapades in North Africa and Tobruk, onto missions in Crete and, finally, the invasion of the Soviet Union.
A really engaging read with the author's own photographs of the time, to support.
Memoirs of a Stuka Pilot - Amazon
An off-beat WWII story.
When Horace Greasley (2nd/5th Leicesters) is captured in Europe, he's marched here and there as a POW, arriving at Saubsdorf POW camp in Czechoslovakia, close to the Polish border. There he falls head over heels in love with Rosa, an interpreter who hates the Nazis. He figures out how to get out of the camp, using the same route allegedly over 200 times, to spend many an hour canoodling with her. The book is not without moments of the harsh realities of poor rations, beatings and murders that go with war, but added into the mix are episodes of intimacy.
Do The Birds Still Sing in Hell? Amazon -
I wouldn't call it an obsession, but there's so much reading material on WWII that I am absorbed.
Okay, so there were these planes and they went over and bombed German targets ... stop right there, if you think that's all there was to it!
Night and day, Bomber Command in Lancasters and Halifaxes went over to Germany in their hundreds, sometimes over a thousand a time (just imagine that when you next look at the sky!), targeting German factories, transport hubs, oil depots grinding the enemy into submission. In all 55,888 Bomber Command crew lost their lives, over another 8,000 seriously wounded, the average age of 22, and not all Brits, either.
This gripping dossier brings their missions to the forefront.
Journey's End on Amazon by Kevin Wilson.
