"It took me three minutes to get through the tunnel. Above ground I crawled along holding the rope for several feet: it was tied to a tree. Sergeant Bergsland joined me; we arranged our clothes and walked to the Sagan railway station. 'Bergsland was wearing a civilian suit he had made for himself from a Royal Marine uniform, with an RAF overcoat slightly altered with brown leather sewn over the buttons. A black RAF tie, no hat. He carried a small suitcase which had been sent from Norway. In it were Norwegian toothpaste and soap, sandwiches, and 163 Reichsmarks given to him by the Escape Committee. We caught the 2:04 train to Frankfurt an der Oder. Our papers stated we were Norwegian electricians from the Labour camp in Frankfurt working in the vicinity of Sagan.' Jens Muller was one of only three men who successfully escaped from Stalag Luft III in March 1944 - the break that later became the basis for the famous film the "Great Escape". Muller was no. 43 of the 76 prisoners of war who managed to escape from the camp (now in ?aga? Poland). Together with Per Bergsland he stowed away on a ship to Gothenburg. The escapees sought out the British consulate and were flown from Stockholm and were flown to Scotland. From there they were sent by train to London and shortly afterwards to 'Little Norway' in Canada. Muller's book about his wartime experiences was first published in Norwegian in 1946, titled, 'Tre kom tilbake' (Three Came Back). This is the first translation into English and will correct the impression - set by the film and Charles Bronson - that the men who escaped successfully were American and Australian. In a vivid, informative memoir he details what life in the camp was like, how the escapes were planned and executed and tells the story of his personal breakout and success reaching RAF Leuchars base in Scotland.

Hel Toe En Terug vertel die geskiedenis van die oorlog binne die bestek van minder as 170 bladsye en is ingedeel in agt afdelings, elk toegelig met uitsonderlike foto's en toepaslike kaarte. Een afdeling word in die besonder gewy aan Suid-Afrika se deelname aan die oorlog.

Die Groot Oorlog (1914-1918), soos wat die Eerste Wêreldoorlog oorspronklik bekend gestaan het, was waarlik in elke opsig enorm. Nie net het dit tot die dood van nagenoeg tien miljoen soldate gelei nie, dit was tot in daardie stadium ook die omvangrykste oorlog waarby sowat 80 miljoen mense van verskeie lande betrek is. Boonop is nagenoeg 9 miljoen mense permanent vermink, 12 miljoen is ernstig gewond en byna 8 miljoen is krygsgevange geneem.

Louis Scott, 'n historikus en bekende inwoner van Polokwane, se boek oor dié oorlog, Hel Toe En Terug: Die Eerste Wêreldoorlog, 'n honderd jaar later, het pas verskyn - betyds vir die honderdjarige herdenking van dié verwoestende oorlog. Dit bied vir die eerste keer in Afrikaans 'n omvattende geskiedenis van dié oorlog.

In this revisionist history of the United States government relocation of Japanese-American citizens during World War II, Roger W. Lotchin challenges the prevailing notion that racism was the cause of the creation of these centers. After unpacking the origins and meanings of American attitudes toward the Japanese-Americans, Lotchin then shows that Japanese relocation was a consequence of nationalism rather than racism. Lotchin also explores the conditions in the relocation centers and the experiences of those who lived there, with discussions on health, religion, recreation, economics, consumerism, and theater. He honors those affected by uncovering the complexity of how and why their relocation happened, and makes it clear that most Japanese-Americans never went to a relocation center. Written by a specialist in US home front studies, this book will be required reading for scholars and students of the American home front during World War II, Japanese relocation, and the history of Japanese immigrants in America.

Prison Pens presents the memoir of a captured Confederate soldier in northern Virginia and the letters he exchanged with his fiancee during the Civil War. Wash Nelson and Mollie Scollay's letters, as well as Nelson's own manuscript memoir, provide rare insight into a world of intimacy, despair, loss, and reunion in the Civil War South. The tender voices in the letters combined with Nelson's account of his time as a prisoner of war provide a story that is personal and political, revealing the daily life of those living in the Confederacy and the harsh realities of being an imprisoned soldier. Ultimately, through the juxtaposition of the letters and memoir, Prison Pens provides an opportunity for students and scholars to consider the role of memory and incarceration in retelling the Confederate past and incubating Lost Cause mythology.,br> This book will be accompanied by a digital component: a website that allows students and scholars to interact with the volume's content and sources via an interactive map, digitized letters, and special lesson plans.

In this revisionist history of the United States government relocation of Japanese-American citizens during World War II, Roger W. Lotchin challenges the prevailing notion that racism was the cause of the creation of these centers. After unpacking the origins and meanings of American attitudes toward the Japanese-Americans, Lotchin then shows that Japanese relocation was a consequence of nationalism rather than racism. Lotchin also explores the conditions in the relocation centers and the experiences of those who lived there, with discussions on health, religion, recreation, economics, consumerism, and theater. He honors those affected by uncovering the complexity of how and why their relocation happened, and makes it clear that most Japanese-Americans never went to a relocation center. Written by a specialist in US home front studies, this book will be required reading for scholars and students of the American home front during World War II, Japanese relocation, and the history of Japanese immigrants in America.

When rifleman Tom Guttridge returned from war in the early summer of 1945, he brought home not only vivid memories of the battlefield and his five years in prisoner-of-war camps, but a unique collection of photographs obtained from his German captors by trading items from Red Cross parcels. The photos included battlefield scenes of Calais, where Tom was captured in May 1940 after fighting to hold up the German advance during the evacuation of Dunkirk, and pictures illustrating both the horrors and the lighter side of daily life in the three PoW camps where he spent most of the war - Stalag VIII B and the Delbruick Shaft in southern Poland and Stalag 383 in Bavaria, Germany. Together with his written memories, the pictures provide a rare visual insight into life in PoW camps, including daily chores, funerals and celebrations, camp entertainment and football matches between former professional players.

A wide range of personal experiences are covered in the eleven chapters of this book. Nearly all the stories are written by the participants who describe exactly what happened to them during the war. What makes them special is that they were written while the images were fresh in their minds. The experiences recorded are those of civilians and soldiers. Where possible information about these men has been provided to explain their life before and after the war. Also included are rarely seen images that augment the text. The writers tell true stories of spying, escape from certain death, escape from captivity and working for the Germans to help the Allied war effort. Edwin Woodhall describes his work in counter-intelligence, spies, counter-spies and disguises, in the early days of the war. Harold Beaumont tells the dramatic story of his escape through Belgium where he was helped by Nurse Cavell. The hardships and difficulties an escaper faced are detailed by Walter Ellison, who failed to get away, while a successful escape is told by Duncan Grinnell-Milne who returned to flying over the Western Front and quickly found himself in no man's land when his plane crashed.Captain Evans was eventually a successful escaper as was H. G. Durnford who managed to escape the first time. Marthe McKenna, one of the most famous spies in the war, tells of the time she was ordered to investigate and assist in a plot to assassinate the Kaiser. Esmee Sartorius tells of her escape to Holland at the start of the war, and the breath-taking thrills of two men disguised as German officers is told by Lieutenant Marchal. The final story describes how Trooper Potts escaped certain death while rescuing his friend on Burnt Hill in Gallipoli.

Approximately 9 million soldiers fell into enemy hands from 1914 to 1918, but historians have only recently begun to recognize the prisoner of war's significance to the history of the Great War. Examining the experiences of the approximately 130,000 German prisoners held in the United Kingdom during World War I, historian Brian K. Feltman brings wartime captivity back into focus. Many German men of the Great War defined themselves and their manhood through their defense of the homeland. They often looked down on captured soldiers as potential deserters or cowards--and when they themselves fell into enemy hands, they were forced to cope with the stigma of surrender. This book examines the legacies of surrender and shows that the desire to repair their image as honorable men led many former prisoners toward an alliance with Hitler and Nazism after 1933. By drawing attention to the shame of captivity, this book does more than merely deepen our understanding of German soldiers' time in British hands. It illustrates the ways that popular notions of manhood affected soldiers' experience of captivity, and it sheds new light on perceptions of what it means to be a man at war.

Many of the prisoners held by the Japanese during the WWII were so scarred by their experiences that they could not discuss them even with their families. They believed that their brutal treatment was, literally, incomprehensible. But some prisoners were determined that posterity should know how they were starved and beaten, marched almost to death or transported on 'hellships', used as slave labour - most notoriously on the Burma-Thailand railway - and how thousands died from tropical diseases. They risked torture or execution to draw and write diaries that they hid wherever they could, sometimes burying them in the graves of lost comrades. The diaries tell of inhumanity and degradation, but there are also inspirational stories of courage, comradeship and compassion. When men have unwillingly plumbed the depths of human misery, said one prisoner, the artist Ronald Searle, they form a silent understanding of what solidarity, friendship and kindness to others can mean. The diaries and interviews with surviving prisoners drawn on in SURVIVING THE SWORD will tell a new generation about that solidarity, friendship and kindness.

This is the true-life story of a Polish girl soldier who fought for her country and lost her homeland; told through numerous vivid personal experiences. Aged 14 'Wira' became a freedom fighter and later played her part in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. Liberated from a POW camp she began a new life in exile as a political refugee in England. - Danuta's story begins with her childhood years in German-occupied Warsaw. She was ten in 1939 when her family home in central Warsaw was destroyed. Her mother turned to smuggling to feed the family as they struggled to survive. The Germans closed down Danuta's school in an effort to destroy Poland's identity. Aged 14 she watched smoke rising from the burning Jewish Ghetto. The terror continued as Poles were rounded-up for forced labour. Flickering candles covered the streets where public executions had taken place. Warsaw's spirit was almost broken, but Danuta refused to be a victim and dreamed of fighting back. The opportunity arrived when she was recruited into the Grey Ranks, part of Poland's underground resistance army, within an all-female unit. She assumed the pseudonym 'Wira' (pronounced Vera) and began her assigned sabotage activities, duties which had to be kept secret even from her own family. - One year later the Warsaw Uprising erupted and the city became an inferno. Abandoned by the outside world, the Polish Home Army resisted the brutal German onslaught for 63 days. Wira, then aged 15, played her part in the field Post Office, in the underground cellars filled with terrified civilians, and on the front line. Wira's survival was remarkable, but at what cost? - Wira became a POW in Germany joining over 1,700 Polish female soldiers of the Uprising at Stalag VI-C, Oberlangen. Following their emotional liberation, Wira met a Polish officer serving with the 2nd Polish Corps within the British 8th Army. Faced with a hostile, Soviet-backed communist government in Poland, they took the difficult decision to remain in political exile in Britain. - The early years in a foreign land were difficult and the Poles formed close communities, gradually finding a place for themselves. Wira could never forget the past. In post-war years, Wira revisited her homeland and continued to work for her country's freedom. - In later years Wira was reunited with co-conspirators from the resistance. Finally, after 50 years of oppression, Poland became free again, the Warsaw Uprising was commemorated and Wira was honoured by her country. Now aged 86 she reflects on her life, still resolute that the Warsaw Uprising was inevitable. - About the Author: George Szlachetko is Wira's son. He was born in Ealing, West London where he still lives with his family. Having received a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Birmingham, he pursued a career in finance. Over the course of three years George interviewed his mother, who also lives in Ealing, about her extraordinary life. He conducted additional research, visited archives and made a number of trips to Poland to illuminate the background to her life story.

When it opened in October 1864, Camp Lawton was called ""the world s largest prison."" Operational only six weeks, this stockade near Millen, Georgia, was evacuated in the face of advancing Federal troops under General Sherman. The prison served as headquarters for the Confederate military prison system, witnessed hundreds of deaths, held a mock election for president, was involved in a sick exchange, hosted attempts to recruit Union POWs for Confederate service, and experienced escape attempts. Burned by Sherman's troops following its evacuation in late November 1864, the prison was never reoccupied. Over the next 150 years, the memory of Camp Lawton almost disappeared. In 2010, the Confederate military prison was resurrected--a result of the media event publically showcasing the findings of recent archeological investigations. New in paper, this book not only summarizes these initial archeological findings, but is also the first full-length, documented history of Camp Lawton.

A simple, moving, vivid and heartbreaking account of one young sailor's eventful war. I heard the cries of scared men yelling they couldn't swim, but they jumped in regardless. I pulled off my new boots, dropped them on the deck and, clutching my tobacco tin, jumped overboard, feet first ...We were a good distance away from the sinking Perth when two more torpedoes slammed into it and we watched silently as our ship slid under. Suddenly we were alone at sea in a pitch-black night in an overcrowded Carley float. Someone said, 'Goodbye, gallant one.' Stoker Munro was just an inexperienced seventeen year old knockabout kid when he went to war, but he turned out to be an extraordinary survivor. the sinking of the Perth was only the beginning of his war. Stoker suffered through years of harsh imprisonment in Java and the infamous Changi prison camp, as well as the horrors of the thai-Burma Railway. then, just as conditions improved, he was shipped off to Japan and another disaster. Stoker Munro, Survivor is a simple but moving account of a young sailor's war, as told to his close friend, David Spiteri. Stoker's voice - clear, distinctive, laidback and larrikin, with an ability to find the humour in just about any situation - epitomises everything that is great about the ANZAC spirit: courage, resilience, and the sheer refusal to lie down and be beaten. 'the story of Stoker Darby Munro's survival is an epic of the human spirit ...In our time, when the word hero is flung around so lightly, this book reflects upon genuine heroism. We forget these stories and these lives at our peril.' Mike Carlton

How was it possible that almost all of the nearly 300,000 British and American troops who fell into German hands during World War II survived captivity in German POW camps and returned home almost as soon as the war ended? In Confronting Captivity, Arieh J. Kochavi offers a behind-the-scenes look at the living conditions in Nazi camps and traces the actions the British and American governments took--and didn't take--to ensure the safety of their captured soldiers. Concern in London and Washington about the safety of these POWs was mitigated by the recognition that the Nazi leadership tended to adhere to the Geneva Convention when it came to British and U.S. prisoners. Following the invasion of Normandy, however, Allied apprehension over the safety of POWs turned into anxiety for their very lives. Yet Britain and the United States took the calculated risk of counting on a swift conclusion to the war as the Soviets approached Germany from the east. Ultimately, Kochavi argues, it was more likely that the lives of British and American POWs were spared because of their race rather than any actions their governments took on their behalf.

Ballykinlar Internment Camp was the first mass internment camp to be established by the British in Ireland during the War of Independence. Situated on the County Down coast and opened in December 1920, it became home to hundreds of Irish men arrested by the British, often on little more than the suspicion of involvement in the IRA. Held for up to a year, and subjected to often brutal treatment and poor quality food in an attempt to break them both physically and mentally, the interned men instead established a small community within the camp. The knowledge and skills possessed by the diverse inhabitants were used to teach classes, and other activities, such as sports, drama and music lessons, helped stave off boredom. In the midst of all these activities the internees also endeavoured to defy their captors with various plans for escape. The story of the Ballykinlar internment camp is on the one hand an account of suffering, espionage, murder and maltreatment, but it is also a chronicle of survival, comradeship and community.

Since 2002, the United States has operated military detention facilities at its Naval Station in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to hold individuals detained during overseas counter-terrorism operations. In 2009, the President directed the closure of these facilities within one year. Since then, a number of statues have prohibited the transfer of Guantanamo Bay detainees to the United States. This book describes the current Guantanamo Bay detention facilities and infrastructure; examines the DoD corrections facilities and factors to be considered if these facilities were used to hold the detainees; and discusses other security and legal considerations.

During the winter of 1863-1864, 1,200 Union officers lived in squalor and semi-starvation in Richmond's Libby Prison, known as "The Bastille of the South." On February 9, 109 of those officers wriggled through a fifty-five-foot tunnel to freedom. After an all-out Rebel manhunt, survivors reached Washington, and their testimony spurred far-reaching investigations into the treatment of Union prisoners.

"Libby Prison Breakout" tells the largely unknown story of the most important escape of the Civil War from a Confederate prison, one that ultimately increased the North's and South's willingness to use prisoners in waging "total war."

" In the early years of World War II, it was an amazing feat for an Allied airman shot down over occupied Europe to make it back to England. By 1943, however, pilots and crewmembers, supplied with "escape kits," knew they had a 50 percent chance of evading capture and returning home. An estimated 12,000 French civilians helped make this possible. More than 5,000 airmen, many of them American, successfully traveled along escape lines organized much like those of the U.S. Underground Railroad, using secret codes and stopping in safe houses. If caught, they risked internment in a POW camp. But the French, Belgian, and Dutch civilians who aided them risked torture and even death. Sherri Ottis writes candidly about the pilots and crewmen who walked out of occupied Europe, as well as the British intelligence agency in charge of Escape and Evasion. But her main focus is on the helpers, those patriots who have been all but ignored in English-language books and journals. To research their stories, Ottis hiked the Pyrenees and interviewed many of the survivors. She tells of the extreme difficulty they had in avoiding Nazi infiltration by double agents; of their creativity in hiding evaders in their homes, sometimes in the midst of unexpected searches; of their generosity in sharing their meager food supplies during wartime; and of their unflagging spirit and courage in the face of a war fought on a very personal level.

Ravensbruck was a labour camp within German borders, not far from Berlin. In the beginning it was, by camp standards, a ""better"" camp, designed for indoctrination and industrial production, but by the end of the war it was just another overcrowded locus of horror complete with gas chamber. The result is a fascinating case study of how women of different nationalities and social backgrounds coped for years with lack of food and basic sanitation, illnesses, prejudices and death by carving out their own cultural life. Morrison's reconstruction of the dynamics of camp life presents a vivid picture for today's readers, highlighting the experiences of many individuals, such as the story of one of Ravensbruck's first inmates, an upper-class woman who arrived in her own car and soon found herself standing completely naked in a group of women for seven hours to undergo a humiliating medical examination in front of laughing SS officers. But the women developed all kinds of survival skills, many of which stand as a monument to the human spirit. Bonds of friendship and the creation of ""camp families"" helped alleviate the miseries of camp routine, as did a highly sophisticated educational system developed by Polish inmates. Women artists from several countries provided a further cultural dimension from crafts to poetry, theatre, music and drawings. As the war progressed, camp life deteriorated. More and more victims were concentrated in Ravensbruck, and the Nazis installed a gas chamber. About 140,000 Ravensbruck inmates did not survive the war. In 1945 life in Ravensbruck came to an abrupt end with a dramatic and macabre death march, in which many inmates perished and Nazis, clad as inmates, tried to escape the Russian troops.

This is the gripping historical tragedy of the 220 km railroad that bored its way through the hot, humid Sumatran jungle during World War II. The railway was commissioned by Japan and built with the blood and tears of Allied prisoners of war and press-ganged Javanese romushas. Henk Hovinga interviewed nearly one hundred former railroad workers and did painstaking archival research. The result is a moving book, richly illustrated with numerous authentic drawings of life in the internment camps, charts and photographs.

Mahvish Khan is the only Afghan-American to walk into Guantanamo of her own accord. This unique book is her story, and the story of the men she grew to know uniquely well inside the cages of Guantanamo. Mahvish Khan is an American lawyer, born to immigrant Afghan parents. She was outraged that her country, the USA, seemed to have suspended its tradition of equality for all under the law with regard to those imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, and so she volunteered to translate for the lawyers - including British lawyer and founder of Reprieve Clive Stafford Smith - acting pro bono for the prisoners. Because she spoke their language, understood their customs and brought them Starbucks chai, the closest available drink to the kind of tea they would drink at home, they quickly befriended her, offering fatherly advice as well as a uniquely personal insight into their plight, and that of their families thousands of miles away at home. Some at Guantanamo are terrorists who deserve to be convicted and sentenced as such. Some are paediatricians and school teachers. We cannot tell the difference until we see them as individuals with their own unique stories. They deserve that much. No other writer has had access to the detainees. This book is a testament to their captivity. It documents the voices of men who have been tortured and held in a black hole of indefinite detention without legal recourse for years. It shows who they are and also allows readers to see that these men are more similar to us than they are different.

As an epilogue, Norm tells of working for the Marx Brothers after the war and how they helped him start a new life.

From battlefields, boxcars, and forgotten warehouses to notorious prison camps like Andersonville and Elmira, prisoners seemed to be everywhere during the American Civil War. Yet there is much we do not know about the soldiers and civilians whose very lives were in the hands of their enemies. Living by Inches is the first book to examine how imprisoned men in the Civil War perceived captivity through the basic building blocks of human experience--their five senses. From the first whiffs of a prison warehouse to the taste of cornbread and the feeling of lice, captivity assaulted prisoners' perceptions of their environments and themselves. Evan A. Kutzler demonstrates that the sensory experience of imprisonment produced an inner struggle for men who sought to preserve their bodies, their minds, and their sense of self as distinct from the fundamentally uncivilized and filthy environments surrounding them. From the mundane to the horrific, these men survived the daily experiences of captivity by adjusting to their circumstances, even if these transformations worried prisoners about what type of men they were becoming.

The holding of prisoners of war has always been both a political and a military enterprise, yet the military prisons of the Civil War, which held more than four hundred thousand soldiers and caused the deaths of fifty-six thousand men, have been nearly forgotten. Now Lonnie R. Speer has brought to life the least-known men in the great struggle between the Union and the Confederacy, using their own words and observations as they endured a true hell on earth. Drawing on scores of previously unpublished firsthand accounts, Portals to Hell presents the prisoners' experiences in great detail and from an impartial perspective. The first comprehensive study of all major prisons of both the North and the South, this chronicle analyzes the many complexities of the relationships among prisoners, guards, commandants, and government leaders. Lonnie R. Speer is a freelance writer with a special interest in the Civil War. His articles have appeared in Civil War Times Illustrated and America's Civil War.