Download or read book Stalag IVB s First Aircrew written by Gordon Hurley and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Russians arrived in the night. Tanks came through the wire... On the night of the 23rd August 1943 Halifax H.R. 846 of 35 P.F.F. Squadron was attacked by a German J.U. 88 night figher over Berlin. The wireless operator of that Halifax bomber managed to escape from the burning aircraft and parachute into a built up area of the city where he was captured. The main aircrew P.O.W. camp Stalag Luft III was full so the surviving members of the crew were sent to Stalag IVB, a camp controlled by the German army. This book is the true story of the lives of Royal Air Force aircrew prisoners in Stalag IVB from 1943 to 1945. It tells how they managed to survive and support each other through the hardships and deprivation. In 1945 many hundreds of American troops joined them after their capture at the Battle of Ardennes. They were set free by the arrival of Russian tanks when they ploughed through the barbed wire on the night of April 20th 1945.
Download or read book Aircrew written by Bruce Lewis and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 1991-02-28 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bruce Lewis brings this book together to tell the story of the men who flew the bombers. The different roles within the aircraft are covered and each of their unique experiences discussed through first hand accounts.
Download or read book Survival at Stalag IVB written by Tony Vercoe and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-03-27 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In addition to concentration camps, World War II Germany was also home to 54 prisoner-of-war camps, the largest of which was Stalag IVB. Throughout the more than five years of its existence, Stalag IVB supported numerous satellite camps, eventually housing thousands of prisoners of many nationalities. Here Poles, French, Belgians, British, Americans, Dutch and Russians fought to survive in a place where life's most basic needs were barely fulfilled. Interned in the camp for several months from late 1943, Tony Vercoe engaged in a struggle for life, sanity and escape. This historical chronicle evokes the heartbreaking reality of day-to-day life in Stalag IVB. Rich with firsthand accounts by the author and other veterans of the camp, it provides particulars regarding rations, prisoner-of-war registration, camp hygiene, inmate activities and prisoner morale. Special emphasis is placed on the role of the International Red Cross in prisoner survival and the multinational "melting pot" characteristics of the camp itself. Possibilities of flight and the events that motivated prisoners' daring escape attempts are discussed, along with the consequences of their frequent failures. Closing chapters detail the camp's final months and the prisoners' long awaited deliverance.
Download or read book Footprints on the Sands of Time written by Oliver Clutton-Brock and published by Grub Street Publishing. This book was released on 2003-08-19 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of RAF Evaders provides a comprehensive reference of the airmen of Bomber Command who were held in German captivity during WWII. This extensive book is divided into two part. The first, which has eighteen chapters, deals with German POW camps as they were opened, in chronological order and to which the Bomber Command POWs were sent. Each chapter includes anecdotes and stories of the men in the camps—capture, escape, illness, and murder—and illustrates the awfulness of captivity even in German hands. Roughly one in every twenty captured airmen never returned home. The first part also covers subjects such as how the POWs were repatriated during the war; how they returned at war’s end; the RAF traitors; the war crimes; and the vital importance of the Red Cross. The style is part reference, part gripping narrative, and the book will correct many historical inaccuracies, and includes previously unpublished photographs. The second part comprises an annotated list of ALL 10, 995 RAF Bomber Command airmen who were taken prisoner, together with an extended introduction. The two parts together are the fruit of exhaustive research and provide an important contribution to our knowledge of the war and a unique reference work not only for the serious RAF historian but for the ex-POWs themselves and their families and anyone with an interest in the RAF in general and captivity in particular.
Download or read book Secret Operations Over Occupied Europe written by Nigel S Atkins and published by Air World. This book was released on 2024-05-30 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For several months in 1943, seven young airmen, all volunteers, were moulded into an RAF crew tasked with undertaking perilous operations over Occupied Europe. Drawn together from England, Argentina, and Canada, the crew, led by their captain, Flight Lieutenant Peter Bartter, were assigned to 138 (Special Duties) Squadron, based at RAF Tempsford. It was there that they flew low, over dangerous territory to deliver agents and equipment to aid the Resistance in Occupied Europe. When the Allies opened new fronts in North Africa and Italy, Bartters crew was seconded for some weeks to 624 Squadron flying from Blida in Algeria and Protville in Tunisia. On their return to the UK, they had the additional task of bringing back Winston Churchills son, Randolph. The crews last operation would be to fly Flemming Muus, as head of SOE in Denmark, to Roskilde in Denmark. However, tragedy struck when their Halifax Mk.II, BB378, was shot down approaching its destination on the night of 10/11 December 1943. Exemplary piloting skills from Peter Bartter brought the aircraft down in a frozen field with no injuries. Muus thankfully escaped. The crew, meanwhile, split into two groups the officers, and the NCOs. The officers managed to evade capture and reach Sweden. One of the officers, Ernesto Howell, went on to re-join 138 Squadron, but was sadly killed flying over the North Sea in November 1944. The NCOs luck gave out, and they were all captured, spending the rest of the war in the notorious Stalag IV-B. From there, one of the NCOs managed to escape just before the camp liberated by the Russians. In this book, the crew are traced from their recruitment, to training, deployment and, for the survivors, their post-war lives. The next generation, René, son of agent Ernest Gimpel, and Nigel Atkins, son of Brian Atkins, the co-pilot, have become firm friends. Nigel Atkins traveled across Europe on a journey of discovery as he has met and interviewed many people while visiting multiple locations the crew only visited from above. From daring flights over occupied Europe to meetings over seventy years later, the excavation of the crash site and new friendships formed, this book has it all.
Download or read book American Ex prisoners of War written by Gardner N. Hatch and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 1988 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Trenchard Brat at War written by Stuart Burbridge and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2009-06-18 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the story of Thomas Lancashire who joined the RAF in 1936 and became one of the famous 'Trenchard Brats' at RAF Halton to be educated and learn the trade of fitter. He was first posted to 7 Squadron in 1939, at that time flying Whitley bombers but decided to advance himself to become a flight engineer on the new Stirling heavy bomber. He was posted to 15 Squadron at Wyton and completed a full tour that included the famous Lbeck raid, the Thousand Bomber assault on Cologne and the follow up on Essen during which he was almost shot down over Antwerp. In July 1942 he was rested and became an instructor until being posted to 97 Squadron flying Lancasters. On his ninth raid of this tour, 11 August 1943, the aircraft was attacked by a night fighter over Belgium but he successfully baled out and was eventually picked up by the Resistance and handed to an escape line. Eventually the group of evaders was betrayed by a German agent and placed in captivity, ending up in Stalag Luft IV at Mhlberg. During this time he escaped but was eventually recaptured and he was forced to share the growing despair and hardships in late 1944, enduring overcrowding, hunger and cold, until the Russian Army liberated the camp and he was airlifted back to the UK. His post-war career took him to Canada where he was employed on the Avro Arrow project until it was abandoned and he was forced to seek work in the USA. He worked with Boeing until his retirement .
Download or read book Prisoners of the Reich written by David Rolf and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Gunners from the Sky written by Paul Chrystal and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2023-10-30 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the story of the 1st Air Landing Light Regiment RA and its role in the Italian campaign and at the Battle of Arnhem. It is also the story of one of its soldiers: 14283058 Gunner Eric Wright Chrystal, father of the authors. Eric joined the army in September 1942 and, after training, joined the newly formed glider-borne regiment the following year. He first saw action in Italy in 1943, where he was seriously wounded. On 17 September 1944, two years to the day since he enlisted, he and the regiment were landed by glider near to Arnhem in the Netherlands. The authors recount set their father’s experiences in context by describing the formation of the unit and the many months of training in England. Their involvement in the Italian campaign, where Eric served with E Troop, 3 Battery, is then recounted, detailing their actions at Rionero, Foggia and Campobasso, where Eric was wounded. It then moves on to describe 1st Air Landing Light Regiment’s preparation for and involvement in Operation Market (the Airborne half of Market Garden). This very detailed account of the fighting highlights the regiment’s pivotal (but often neglected) role near Arnhem bridge. Here, after nine days of intense combat, Eric was among the many captured and held until the end of the war. The inclusion of Eric’s own eyewitness testimony lends a very personal touch to this excellent account of the regiment’s experience of combat and life in the PoW camps.
Download or read book Airborne in 1943 written by Kevin Wilson and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-12-04 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The year 1943 saw the beginning of an unprecedented bombing campaign against Germany. Over the next twelve months, tens of thousands of aircrews flew across the North Sea to drop bombs on German cities. They were opposed not only by the full force of the Luftwaffe, but by a nightmare of flak, treacherously icy conditions, and constant mechanical malfunction. Most of these courageous crews were either shot down and killed or taken prisoner by an increasingly hostile enemy. This is the story of the everyday heroism of these crews in the days when it was widely believed that the Allies could win the Second World War by air alone. American pilots had a special role in the “Dambusters” campaign in particular. Even before the attacks on Pearl Harbor, scores of eager pilots travelled across the Canadian border to train with other future “Dam-busters,” all eager to take part. Authoritative and gripping, Airborne in 1943 brings these remarkable men and women to vivid life.
Download or read book Captured at Arnhem written by Peter Green and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2022-07-20 with total page 602 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the British 1st Airborne Division Operation Market Garden in September 1944 was a disaster. The Division was eliminated as a fighting force with around a half of its men were captured. The Germans were faced with dealing with 6,000 prisoners in a fortnight; many of them seriously wounded. Somehow the men were processed and despatched to camps around Germany and German occupied eastern Europe. Here the men experienced the reality of the collapsing regime – little food and shrinking frontiers. Once liberated in 1945 returning former prisoners were required to complete liberation questionnaires. Some refused. Others returned before ’Operation Endor’ to handle released men and their repatriation to Britain was in place. Around a third did. However the questionnaires that do exist give an picture of every day experience for the 2,357 of these elite troops’ time in captivity from capture to release. They show that German procedures still operating, but that men were often treated inhumanely, when moved to camps by closed box cars and when camps were evacuated. Although their interrogators were interested in Allied aircraft and airfields, their interrogators were also concerned the effect of the new miracle weapons and with politics, how Germany would be treated after an Allied victory? Nevertheless the airborne men’s morale remained high; carrying out sabotage at artificial oil plants, railway repairs, factories and mines. Some overcame their guards when being evacuated at the end of the War, in some cases joining the Resistance. They record help received from Dutch, French and German civilians.
Download or read book The Colditz Myth written by S. P. Mackenzie and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Though only one among hundreds of prison camps in which British servicemen were held between 1939 and 1945, Colditz enjoys unparalleled name recognition both in Britain and in other parts of the English-speaking world. Colditz remains a potent symbol of key virtues--including ingenuity and perseverance against apparently overwhelming odds--that form part of the popular mythology surrounding the British war effort in World War II. Colditz has played a major role in shaping perceptions of the POW experience in Nazi Germany, an experience in which escaping is assumed to be paramount and "Outwitting the Hun" a universal sport. The story of Colditz has been told in a variety of forms but in this book MacKenzie chronicles the development of the Colditz myth and puts what happened inside the castle in the context of British and Commonwealth POW life in Germany as a whole. Being a captive of the Third Reich--from the moment of surrender down to the day of liberation and repatriation --was more complicated and a good deal tougher than the popular myth would suggest. The physical and mental demands of survival far outweighed escaping activity in order of importance in most camps almost all of the time, and even in Colditz the reality was in some respects very different from the almost Boy's Own caricature that developed during the post-war decades. In The Colditz Myth MacKenzie seeks, for the first time, to place Colditz--both the camp and the legend-- in a wider historical context.
Download or read book Colditz Myth C written by and published by . This book was released on with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through first-hand accounts of hundreds of ordinary prisoners of war, Paul MacKenzie strips away the mythology and presents the real picture of what it was like to be captured and interrogated and to endure the physical and mental hardships of captivity. Colditz is placed in a wider historical context.
Download or read book The Hidden Thread written by Irina Filatova and published by Jonathan Ball Publishers. This book was released on 2013-06-28 with total page 802 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Hidden Thread is a journey of revelation about the relationship between Soviet Russia and South Africa, hidden for most of its length. The story is told with insight and depth by Irina Filatova and Apollon Davidson, who have had a decades long association researching and writing on Russian and South African politics and history. This insightful work follows the often surprising twists and turns of the history of South Africa's relationship with Russia and its people which started in the eighteenth century and is still very much alive today. The story evolves from the Russian volunteers who fought alongside the Boers in the Anglo-Boer War to South Africans who participated in the Russian revolution and civil war; from the Russian Jewish immigration to South Africa to the close involvement of the South African communists in the Communist International; from the Soviet consulates in South Africa and the activities of South Africa's Friends of the Soviet Union Society during the Second World War to the vicissitudes of the Cold War and the 'hot' war in Angola; from the SACP and ANC's relations with the USSR to the volte-face of perestroika and South Africa's transition and to today's business, political, cultural and sometimes criminal connections between Russians and South Africans.
Download or read book No 313 Czech Squadron 1941 1945 written by Phil H. Listemann and published by Philedition. This book was released on 2015-06-30 with total page 43 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A deep study of this unit which includes history, the men who flew with it, details on losses, claims, statistics with plenty of photos - 50 including two in colour - and colour profiles - 7.
Download or read book Flying into Hell written by Mel Rolfe and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2008-07-15 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vivid World War II stories of the brave men of Bomber Command and their adventures from the bestselling author of To Hell and Back and Hell on Earth. Mel Rolfe brings the reader real-life stories of bomber command at war with his new book Flying into Hell. A journalist by profession, Rolfe has conducted his interviews and prepared the stories in such a way as to take the reader into the events as they happened. To read these accounts is to step back into the war itself . . . Returning to a French village three years after baling out from a blazing bomber, a former rear gunner was shown the site of his supposed grave. He had been so badly burned a French doctor had left him alone in a graveyard to die. He met again the brave people who had looked after him until he was well enough to join a group walking to freedom across the Pyrenees. Other stories include a bomber that came down so low over the sea to escape ack-ack guns that it struck the water and managed to claw its way back up into the sky; the Lancaster pilot who wore Hermann Goering’s Iron Cross around his neck as a lucky charm; a gunner incarcerated in Buchenwald; and a flight engineer who lost his fingers to frostbite after the bomber’s rear door was blown open. Many of these stories demonstrate the amazing resilience of the human spirit, and the unwavering courage of the young men who helped bomb the enemy into submission. They are illustrated with photographs, most of which have not been published before.
Download or read book Bombs Away written by Martin W. Bowman and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a unique selection of wide-ranging experiences of British and Commonwealth Bomber Command aircrew during World War II. Their endearing bravery and fortitude and sometimes their despondency and cynicism, shows through in these stirring, daring, often irreverent, humorous and sometimes sardonic but memorable stories. All reflect the ethos, camaraderie, fear and bravery of the largely ordinary men, most of whom were plucked from 'civvy street' and thrust into a frightening, bitter conflict which was made even more dangerous by the lethal advance of technology.Death would normally come from an anonymous assassin, either in the black of night, or from behind a cloud or out of the sun, or simply from the Flak gunner on the ground. And, if all this was not enough, the often unmerciful weather was no respecter of mortality. There was no escaping the all-embracing shock wave that rippled through the bomber squadrons after a heavy mauling over enemy territory. Nothing could be more poignant than the vacuous places at tables in the depleted mess halls, the empty locker of the departed, or the dog pining by the barracks for its missing master. Each man had to deal with tragedy in his own inimitable way. Some hid their feelings better than others did only for the pain to resurface months or even years later. Some who had survived the physical pressures and who completed their tours then succumbed to the mental torture that had eaten away at their psyche during the incessant and interminable onslaught day after day, night after night. There was little respite. The valorous men of Bomber Command were, in turn, the Light Brigade, the stop gap, the riposte, the avengers, the undefeated. Always, they were expendable.
