Download or read book Flight from Colditz written by Anthony Hoskins and published by Frontline Books. This book was released on 2016-05-31 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Colditz Castle was one of the most famous Prisoner of War camps of the Second World War. It was there that the Germans interred their most troublesome or important prisoners. Hundreds of ingenious escape attempts were made but the most ambitious of all was to build a glider and fly to freedom.Though the glider was built, the war ended before it could be used, and it was subsequently destroyed. Using the original plans and materials used by the prisoners, in March 2012 a replica of the glider was constructed in a bid to see if the escape attempt would have succeeded. The glider was then launched from the roof of the castle roof.Anthony Hoskins is the man who built, and helped launch, the glider. As well as examining the story behind the building of the original glider, he details the construction of the replica and the nail-biting excitement as the Colditz Cock finally took to the skies. Packed with photos of the glider and its flight over Colditz, this is the inside story of the recreation of one of the most intriguing episodes of the Second World War.

Download or read book Colditz written by P. R. Reid and published by Zenith Press. This book was released on 2015-01-15 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Nazis thought escape was impossible. Colditz is the true story of the Allied prisoners held there and their (sometimes successful) efforts to escape, written by one of the POWs.

Download or read book Colditz the German Story written by Reinhold Eggers and published by Pen & Sword Military. This book was released on 2007-05 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Reinhold Eggers one of the German staff who was Security Officer during the last years at Colditz. It is a compilation of the most spectacular escape attempts written by the escapers themselves. Eggers supports the stories with extracts from his Colditz diary which ran to 26 copybooks, with stories about the German staff and their characters, and a short account of the end of his war when he became a prisoner himself. It has some memorably funny moments (especially the tale of Max and Moritz, who filled in on parades), some very sad moments, and some descriptions of escapes that are truly astonishing"--Publisher's description.

Download or read book The Diggers of Colditz written by Jack Champ and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-06-17 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Colditz Castle was Nazi Germany’s infamous ‘escape-proof’ wartime prison, where hundreds of the most determined and resourceful Allied prisoners were sent. Despite having more guards than inmates, Australian Lieutenant Jack Champ and other prisoners tirelessly carried out their campaign to escape from the massive floodlit stronghold, by any means necessary. In this riveting account – by turns humorous, heartfelt and tragic – historian Colin Burgess and Lieutenant Jack Champ, from the point of view of the prisoners themselves, tell the story of the twenty Australians who made this castle their ‘home’, and the plans they made that were so crazy that some even achieved the seemingly impossible – escape! ‘A stirring testimony of mateship . . . We are often on tenterhooks, always impressed by their determination, industry and courage’ Australian Book Review

Download or read book Colditz written by Henry Chancellor and published by Coronet. This book was released on 2002-04-04 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Colditz high security camp contained every persistent escaper, trouble maker and valuable hostage captured by the Germans in World War II. It was considered escape proof but the very opposite proved to be true. The prisoners pooled their collected talents to create the greatest escape academy of the war.

Download or read book Prisoners of the Castle written by Ben Macintyre and published by Signal. This book was released on 2022-09-13 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the bestselling author of The Spy and the Traitor, a definitive and surprising new narrative of one of history's most famous prisons--and the remarkable cast of POWs who tried to relentlessly escape their Nazi captors. The myth of Colditz, the most infamous prison in history, has stood unchallenged for 70 years: prisoners of war, mustaches firmly set on stiff upper lips, defying the Nazis by tunnelling out of a grim Gothic castle on a German hilltop. Like all legends, that story contains only part of the truth. In Ben Macintyre's brilliant, cliche-smashing new history, he offers a vision of Colditz previously unimagined, a story of much more than an escape, just as the prison's inmates were far more complicated than the cardboard saints depicted in post-war pop culture. Colditz was a miniature replica of office-class society at the time, only far stranger: a lethal, high stakes boarding school surrounded by barbed wire, initially containing prisoners of all Allied nations, including Canada, but eventually only Britons and Americans, a heavily guarded cage with its own culture, eccentricities, and internal tensions. In intimate and compelling detail, Macintyre explores what happens to people when they are locked up without committing a crime and with no idea when or if they might be liberated. Colditz, then, is a tale of the indomitable human spirit, but also one of snobbery, class conflict, hidden sexuality, bullying, espionage, boredom, insanity, and farce. With access to declassified archives, private papers, and never-before-seen photos, the author reveals a remarkable cast of characters, previously hidden from history: Indian doctor Birendranath Mazymdar, the only non-white prisoner, whose ill-treatment, hunger-strike and eventual escape reads like fiction; Florimond Duke, America's oldest paratrooper and least successful secret agent; Christoper Clayton Hutton, the brilliant inventor employed by British intelligence to manufacture escape aids for POWs, from maps hidden in playing cards to a compass secreted inside a walnut; and many others. Bringing together the wartime intrigue of his acclaimed Operation Mincemeat and keen psychological portraits of his bestselling true-life spy stories, Macintyre has breathed stunning new life into one of the greatest war stories ever told.

Download or read book Castle of the Eagles written by Mark Felton and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2017-07-18 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vincigliata Castle, a menacing medieval fortress set in the beautiful Tuscan hills, has become a very special prisoner of war camp on Benito Mussolini’s personal order. Within are some of the most senior officers of the Allied army, guarded by almost two hundred Italian soldiers and a vicious fascist commando who answers directly to “Il Duce” Mussolini himself. Their unbelievable escape, told by Mark Felton in Castle of the Eagles, is a little-known marvel of World War II. By March 1943, the plan is ready: this extraordinary assemblage of middle-aged POWs has crafted civilian clothes, forged identity papers, gathered rations, and even constructed dummies to place in their beds, all in preparation for the moment they step into the tunnel they have been digging for six months. How they got to this point and what happens after is a story that reads like fiction, supported by an eccentric cast of characters, but is nonetheless true to its core.

Download or read book The Daily Telegraph Book of Colditz Castle Obituaries written by The Daily The Daily Telegraph and published by Frontline Books. This book was released on 2021-04-28 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Colditz Castle was one of the most famous Prisoner of War camps of the Second World War. It was there that the Germans interred their most troublesome or important prisoners. It made sense, the Germans believed, to place the most troublesome Allied prisoners in one place where they could be carefully watched and guarded. The place that was selected was the notorious Schloss Colditz deep in eastern Germany.During the First World War Schloss Colditz became a hospital and when the Nazis came to power in the 1930s it became a political prison. With the need for a high security prisoner of war facility following the outbreak of war in 1939, Schloss Colditz became Offizierslager, or Oflag IV-C.In reality, the decision to confine these inveterate escapers in one place ensured that Colditz was turned into a hotbed of industry and invention. Though the castle was built on an outcrop of rock, with a sheer drop of 250 yards down to the River Mulde, and the fact that Colditz was 400 miles from any frontier not under German control, the prisoners began escape planning from almost the day they first arrived - and they continued to do so throughout the months and years that followed, becoming ever more daring and ingenious. Tunnelling, impersonation, disguise, bribery of guards, forgery of documents and trickery of all kinds were the order of the day.By the time that Oflag IV-C was liberated in 1945, some thirty prisoners had made successful 'home runs', escaping back to Allied or neutral territory. There were also countless failed attempts, some of which were quite brilliant in their conception. The most remarkable of these was the plan to build a glider and fly over the walls to freedom - perhaps the most ambitious and extraordinary escape story of all time.This unique collection of obituaries from the pages of The Telegraph present a fascinating insight into some of those held captive in Schloss Colditz.

Download or read book From Calais to Colditz written by Philip Pardoe and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2016-07-31 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Calais to Colditz has never been published before but readers will surely agree that the wait has been worthwhile. The author was a young platoon commander when his battalion were ordered by Prime Minister Winston Churchill to defend Calais to the last man and so distract German attention from the evacuation of the BEF at Dunkirk.After an intense four day battle, the survivors were subjected to a gruelling twelve day march towards Germany. There followed incarceration in a succession of POW camps during which the author succeeded in escaping twice, both over the wire and by tunnelling, remaining at large on one occasion for twelve days. These exploits qualified him for a place in the notorious Colditz Castle, the supposed escape-proof camp. The descriptions of his colourful fellow prisoners, their captors and their extraordinary experiences are as good as any of the previous accounts and in many respects more revealing.How fortunate it is that From Calais to Colditz can now be read by a wide audience.

Download or read book The Colditz Story written by Patrick Robert Reid and published by Time Life Medical. This book was released on 1992-01-01 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Latter Days at Colditz written by Major P R Reid and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2014-12-04 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In THE COLDITZ STORY, Pat Reid told the story of the escape academy that sprang up inside the most impregnable German POW camp of the Second World War, ending appropriately with his own incredible escape from Colditz. But Reid's own break-out was by no means the last. In this enthralling sequel, he follows the fortunes of the escape academy right up until the arrival of the allied forces in April 1945. These tales of fantastic bravery and stunning ingenuity are every bit as mesmerising as the original. A true classic, LATTER DAYS AT COLDITZ is the bestselling conclusion to the story of the infamous German P.O.W. camp.

Download or read book Escape and Liberation 1940 1945 written by Alfred John Evans and published by . This book was released on 2013-06 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many prisoners attempted the ?Home Run', the escape from German PoW camps. World War I escaper, Alfred Evans inspired many prisoners, and he, in turn, took up his pen to narrate many of the famous escapes of Word War II, including prisoners from the notorious Colditz Castle. Escape was the first problem, the second was to succeed in evasion.

Download or read book Above Us The Stars written by Jane Gulliford Lowes and published by Matador. This book was released on 2020-09-28 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book tells the story of Flight Sergeant Jack Clyde, a 19-year-old wireless operator serving with 10 Squadron between 1943 and 1944, and his crew.

Download or read book Colditz The Definitive History written by Henry Chancellor and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2003-01-21 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chronicles the experiences of the prisoners within the walls of Colditz Prison, a medieval castle that was converted into a high security fortress by the Germans during World War II.

Download or read book Five Past Midnight written by James S Thayer and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-09-15 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Escaping from Germany’s Colditz Castle where he was being held as a prisoner of war, Captain Jack Cray fights his way to Berlin in April 1945, following a twisted trail of terror across Germany. The American Army commando has just been handed the most dangerous mission of his career—the assassination of Adolf Hitler.

Download or read book MI9 written by Helen Fry and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-27 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A thrilling history of MI9—the WWII organization that engineered the escape of Allied forces from behind enemy lines When Allied fighters were trapped behind enemy lines, one branch of military intelligence helped them escape: MI9. The organization set up clandestine routes that zig-zagged across Nazi-occupied Europe, enabling soldiers and airmen to make their way home. Secret agents and resistance fighters risked their lives and those of their families to hide the men. Drawing on declassified files and eye-witness testimonies from across Europe and the United States, Helen Fry provides a significant reassessment of MI9’s wartime role. Central to its success were figures such as Airey Neave, Jimmy Langley, Sam Derry, and Mary Lindell—one of only a few women parachuted into enemy territory for MI9. This astonishing account combines escape and evasion tales with the previously untold stories behind the establishment of MI9—and reveals how the organization saved thousands of lives.

Download or read book The Colditz Legacy written by Guy Walters and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-06-30 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Germany 1941. Two British officers, Hugh Hartley and Malcolm Royce, achieved what many believed to be impossible. They escaped from Oflag IVC, better known as Colditz Castle. But as they are about to cross the border into Switzerland, and within yards of reaching freedom, Royce is shot. He begs Hartley to go on and save himself. Wracked with guilt, Hartley leaves his friend behind. London, 1973. Thirty years later and Hartley is now a senior MI6 officer. When a shadowy contact tips him off that Royce may still be alive, and still being held in Colditz - now a lunatic asylum - Hartley is desperate to discover what really happened to his friend. He plans a perilous mission to break back into Colditz, but the truth he will find there will be more shocking than he could possibly have imagined.