Category: Military - POWs & Escapers
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THE MAN OF CONFIDENCE: A GREEK POW IN WORLD WAR II.
By: Aslanis, Anastasios.
Publisher: Manhattan, Kansas, Sunflower University Press: 1995
Binding: Soft Cover
259 pp, 8vo (9" H). B&w photographs, plans, maps. "(The author) enlisted in the Royal Air Force at the air base in Heracleion at the age of 16. During the German invasion of Crete in May 1941, he was evacuated with other soldiers to the HMS Hereward. When the Hereward was sunk by German warplanes, Aslanis was captured by the Italians and was interned in POW camps in Italy and Germany until early 1945, when he was repatriated by Allied forces and returned home." These are his reminiscences of his experiences as a prisoner of war. Interior - clean and tight with no previous own...
CAMERA IN COLDITZ.
By: Baybutt, Ron.
Publisher: London, Hodder and Stoughton: 1982
128 pp, large 8vo (9 7/8" H). Profusely illustrated with b&w photographs. "Colditz Castle is the Eiger North Wall of World War Two POW camps. It was the ultimate fortress for the bravest and the best, for the most ingenious, most determined and daredevil spirits who had already effected an exit from lesser establishments of the Third Reich. From Colditz, it was boasted, there could be no escape. The stories of those Allied officers who took up the challenge are now well known. But here for the first time a book gathers together a collection of the authentic official German photographs...
A WARTIME LOG.
By: Beltrone, Art and Beltrone, Lee.
Publisher: Charlottesville, Virginia, Howell: 1994
Condition: Very Good+
208 pp, 9 3/4" H. Signed on front free endpaper: "Art Beltrone / Lee Beltrone". Profusely illustrated in b&w and colour. "With watercolors extracted from food can labels and paint brushes made from their own hair, downed World War II American airmen recreated their recollections of combat and experiences as prisoners of war in blank books provided by the Y.M.C.A. With remarkable ingenuity and creativity, prisoners used their Wartime Logs as a mental escape from the physical confinement of German prison camps. Sketches, illustrations, poetry, diary entries - all were recorde...
BONDS OF WIRE: A MEMOIR.
By: Brown, Kingsley. Foreword by Dave McIntosh.
Publisher: Toronto, Collins: 1989
267 pp, 8vo (8 3/4" H). B&w drawings. "On July 3, 1942, RCAF Bomber Pilot Kingsley Brown was shot down over Holland, and shortly afterwards incarcerated in Stalag Luft 3. He spent the next three years there. When the gates slammed shut behind him, much to his surprise Brown found himself in a fascinating environment where hardship and trial were more than matched by the bizarre, the absurd and the comical. A seasoned raconteur, Brown brings to life a whole array of unusual characters: Wally Floody, the indefatigable digger of tunnels and the engineer of the Great Escape; Hermann Glemn...
THE TARTAN PIMPERNEL.
By: Caskie, Donald C.
Publisher: London, Oldbourne: 1959
Condition: Good+
270 pp, 8vo (8 3/4" H). B&w plates. "On Sunday, 10 June 1940, the Rev. Donald C. Caskie, Minister of the Scottish Kirk in Paris, preached for the last time in four years, said goodbye to his congregation, locked the church and joined the mass-exodus from the city. A Highlander, he denounced Hitler from his pulpit. He was on the Gestapo 'Black List'. After a perilous journey - he was mobbed by French villagers who thought him a German paratrooper and machine-gunned from the air - he arrived in Marseilles and commandeered the British Seamen's Mission near the Old Harbour. There the adve...
IN ENEMY HANDS: CANADIAN PRISONERS OF WAR, 1939-45.
By: Dancocks, Daniel G.
Publisher: Edmonton, Hurtig: 1983
303 pp, 8 3/4" H. B&w photographs. "There were more than nine thousand Canadians taken prisoner during World War II. Here, in their own words, are the stories of 165 of them - soldiers, airmen, sailors, captured in Europe and the Far East and imprisoned in camps in Germany, Italy, Hong Kong, and Japan. Forty years after the event, they retell their remarkable adventures." Light old tape marks on free endpapers, previous owner's name on front free endpaper, light dust staining/foxing on top of text block. Dust jacket has minor edgewear/wrinkling, slight waviness at edges, minor ru...
A LEAP IN THE DARK: A WELSH AIRMAN'S ADVENTURES IN OCCUPIED EUROPE.
By: Davies, James Arthur.
Publisher: London, Leo Cooper: 1994
Condition: Very Good -
170 pp, large 8vo (9 1/2" H). B&w photographs, map. Jim Davies' story of being shot down over Holland in World War II, of evading capture with the help of the Dutch Resistance, only to be betrayed in the end by a double agent. Sent to a prisoner-of-war camp in Poland, he later assumed that he would be liberated by the Russians at the end of the war, but the Germans took the prisoners with them as they retreated. "(A)n inspiring story of great courage and self-sacrifice in the face of appalling hardship and constant danger." Minor wrinkle at top/bottom of spine, approx. 4" x...
170 pp, large 8vo (9 1/2" H). B&w photographs, map. Jim Davies' story of being shot down over Holland in World War II, of evading capture with the help of the Dutch Resistance, only to be betrayed in the end by a double agent. Sent to a prisoner-of-war camp in Poland, he later assumed that he would be liberated by the Russians at the end of the war, but the Germans took the prisoners with them as they retreated. "(A)n inspiring story of great courage and self-sacrifice in the face of appalling hardship and constant danger." Book is Fine. Dust jacket has very light wrinkling at...
THE SERGEANT ESCAPERS.
By: Dominy, John. Foreword by Airey Neave.
Publisher: Ian Allan, London, (1974), Ist edition.:
136 pp, 8vo, hard cover in dust jacket. B&w photos. "Less well known (than stories of the Colditz and Stalag III escapers) but equally heroic were those of the large numbers of Royal Air Force NCO pilots, observers and air gunners who fell into German hands...A particularly notorius NCO camp was Heydekrug on the Baltic coast in what was East Prussia - the scene of one of the most remarkable POW exploits of the war. A tough, daring and resourceful escaper, Warrant Officer George Grimson, succeeded in establishing an escape route within Nazi Germany itself. Destined to be one of the grea...
THE WAR DIARIES OF WEARY DUNLOP. JAVA AND THE BURMA-THAILAND RAILWAY, 1942-1945.
By: Dunlop, E.E. Foreword by Colonel Sir Laurens van der Post.
Publisher: Victoria, Australia., Penguin: 1990
475 pp, 7 3/4" H. B&w photographs, reproductions. "This (is the) fascinating account of Sir Edward Dunlop's experiences as senior medical officer in prisoner-of-war camps in Java and on the Burma-Thailand Railway." Interior - clean and tight with no previous ownership marks. Exterior - light browning to edges of text block, light rubbing.
P.O.W. THE UNCIVIL FACE OF WAR.
By: Garrett, Richard.
Publisher: Newton Abbot, David & Charles: 1988
240 pp, 7 3/4" H. B&w illustrations. "(T)ells the story of the men who, from the days of the Hundred Years War to the present day, were captives in wartime. It is a tale that does humanity little credit. Prisoners have been starved, tortured, brainwashed, and housed in conditions that would shame a civilian jail. Here you will find the true story of captors' inhumanity to captives throughout the ages as well as the efforts of the Red Cross to lessen the torture. Yet throughout the narrative runs a stirring heart-beat of courage." Interior - light browning to pages, otherwise clea...
KOREA 1950-1953: PRISONERS OF WAR, THE BRITISH ARMY.
By: Gaston, Peter, compiled by.
Publisher: London, London Stamp Exchange: 1976
Binding: Stapled in Wraps
28 pp, 8 1/4" H. "This list contains the names of British Army personnel who were reported 'Missing' and, in most cases, their eventual classification. Names of those definitely identified as KIA (i.e. who never became POWs) have in general been withdrawn although there are one or two exceptions in an endeavour to correct the many lists in circulation made from newspaper reports of the period and subject to gross inaccuracy. " Names are listed alphabetically under regiments. Interior - clean and tight with no previous ownership marks. Exterior - one or two small soft creases o...
DIE LIKE THE CARP! THE STORY OF THE GREATEST PRISON ESCAPE EVER ...
By: Gordon, Harry.
Publisher: Stanmore, New South Wales, Cassell Australia: 1979
240 pp, 8vo (8 5/8" H). Map/plan endpapers, b&w photographs. "In the early morning of 5 August 1944, outside the little Australian township of Cowra, the greatest prison break in world history took place. More than 1100 Japanese prisoners of war took part, and 231 of them were killed; 334 of them actually escaped, and were captured over the ensuing nine days by posses of police, soldiers and local farmers. During the outbreak and the events which followed, four Australian soldiers were killed and another four were wounded. The whole bizarre episode was cloaked in secrecy at the time, ...
THE DEVIL'S GRIN: WHY AND HOW THE JAPANESE MILITARY IMPRISONED DUTCH CIVILIANS LIVING IN THE DUTCH EAST INDIES DURING THE 1941-1945 PACIFIC WAR.
By: Harting, Toni.
Publisher: Toronto, Self-published: 2013
186 pp, 9" H. Signed on title page: "Toni Harting / 31 May (?) 13". B&w photographs, map. "(A)ims to provide insight into, and information about, the mentality, philosophy, and motivation of the Japanese people, especially the Japanese military, before and during the 1941-1945 war in the Pacific, as well as their system of civilian concentration camps in the Dutch East Indies colony in Southeast Asia. The book also portrays the story of a young Dutch teenage boy developing into an eighteen-year-old man under brutal circumstances as a civilian prisoner of war in Japanese conc...
PAST TENSE: CHARLIE'S STORY.
By: Hobbs, Charlie.
Publisher: Burnstown, Ontario, General Store Publishing House: 1994
208 pp, large 8vo (9" H). B&w photographs, map. "Like many of his friends, Charlie Hobbs was eager to join up when (WWII) broke out in 1939. Who wanted to take a bank manager's course when you could fly with the RCAF? After qualifying as an airgunner, Charlie sailed for England in 1941 and spent the next two years flying over Europe with the #83 and #207 squadrons. Leaves spent in London and with Aunt Jennie in Scotland provided welcome respites from the terrors of war for Charlie and his chum, Cam, and both looked as if they would be two of the lucky ones. Then Cam was shot down. ...
GROUNDED IN EIRE: THE STORY OF TWO RAF FLIERS INTERNED IN IRELAND DURING WORLD WAR II.
By: Keefer, Ralph.
Publisher: Montreal, McGill-Queen's University Press: 2001
263 pp, large 8vo (9 1/4" H). B&w photographs, drawings, maps. "Off-course after a failed mission over Frankfurt in 1941, Bobby Keefer and his best friend Jack Calder found themselves forced to bail out of their twin-engine Wellington over Southern Ireland. Much to their surprise, rather than being returned to their squadron in England, they were interned for having violated Ireland's neutral airspace. After an unusual interrogation at the hands of the Local Defence Force, the two Canadian flyers were transferred to a makeshift prison camp in County Kidare - right next to a similar ca...
ROSSANO: A VALLEY IN FLAMES. A STORY OF THE ITALIAN RESISTANCE.
By: Lett, Gordon, Major. Introduction by James Holland. Forewords by Brian Lett & Freya Stark.
Publisher: Barnsley, South Yorkshire, Frontline: 2011
205 pp, 9 1/2" H. B&w photographs, map. "In July 1942, Major Gordon Lett was taken prisoner at the fall of Tobruk. After fourteen months in the notorious prison camps at Bari and Chieti, he escaped at the Armistice of September 1943 from the camp at Veano and took to the mountains above the Cisa Pass. Rather than return to England, he founded and led an entirely non-political band of highly-successful partisans, the Battaglione Internazionale. The group fought and harassed the Brigate Nere and the Germans along the Magra Valley from north of Pontremoli to La Spezia for eighteen mo...
SALTY DIPS. VOL. 3. "DID WE SAY ALL?"
By: Lych, Mack, ed. (W.B. Creery, Mildred Bailey Blais, R.W. Timbrell, O.C.S. Robertson, R.L. Lane, E.S. Brand, J.M. Robertson, T.W. Watson, L.M. Langstaff, R. Campbell, L.M. Patterson, G.A. Olmstead, G.F. McElroy, B.R. Burrows, E.W. McLeod, et al.)
Publisher: Ottawa, Ottawa Branch, Naval Officers' Associations of Canada: 1988
240 pp, large 8vo (9 1/4" H). Contents: From the Beginning to the first Disaster; Everyone was "Tea-ing" and then the War came; There, but for the Flip of a Coin; Big Robbie's War; To the Engineroom by Motorcycle; Not all the Work was done at Sea; Saga of a Four-Stacker; Hurricanes at Singapore - Liberator over Burma; What the Captain's Writer saw; Those daring young Men in their fast MTBs; Of Brigs and Barracudas; Prisoners of War: 1. Milag - Four Long Years - 2 . Stalag - Tail Gunner - 3. Marlag - Athabaskan Survivor; There I Was, upside-down, two Fathoms on the Clock; "You'...
ESCAPE FROM CANADA! THE UNTOLD STORY OF GERMAN POWs IN CANADA, 1939-1945.
By: Melady, John.
Publisher: Toronto, Macmillan of Canada: 1981
210 pp, large 8vo (9 1/4" H). B&w photographs. "Captured on the battlefields of Europe and Africa, or on the open sea, 25,000 German officers and other ranks were sent to camps across (Canada), to live out the duration of the war behind barbed wire. Many of these men were the cream of Hitler's fighting troops, and they regarded it as their duty to escape imprisonment and return to Germany to fight again." Here are stories of these escapes and escape attempts, as well as information on the organization and running of the camps and on murders, riots and schemes that took place in...