Download or read book The Comet Escape Line written by Alexander Stilwell and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2024-09-19 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Comet Escape Line tells the story of the most successful escape line of the Second World War. Inspired by the English nurse Edith Cavell, who helped Allied soldiers escape from occupied Belgium in the First World War, Andrée de Jongh and a group of young Belgian friends conceived an audacious plan to smuggle downed Allied airmen and other evaders from Belgium, through France and over to neutral Spain. Many incredible escapes followed from safe houses in Brussels, making hazardous train journeys through France, or navigating goat paths through the Pyrenees, evading German and Spanish border patrols. By 1945, the line had aided hundreds of evaders and was a vital part of the escape and evasion picture of the Second World War. In The Comet Escape Line, Alexander Stilwell reveals the personalities and motives of the Comet line founders and the British intelligence organisation that supported it, investigates the Gestapo campaign to destroy it and explores the actions of the Nazi collaborators who infiltrated it. Above all, this is the story of the incredibly brave civilians who risked everything to help the Allied cause.
Download or read book Little Cyclone written by Airey Neave and published by Biteback Publishing. This book was released on 2016-02-02 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The exhilarating true story of the greatest escape route of the Second World War On a hot afternoon in August 1941, a 24-year-old Belgian woman walks into the British consulate in Bilbao, neutral Spain, and demands to see the consul. She presents him with a British soldier she has smuggled all the way from Brussels, through Occupied France and over the Pyrenees. It is a journey she will make countless times thereafter, at unthinkable danger to her own life. Her name is Andrée de Jongh, though she will come to be known as the 'Little Cyclone' in tribute to her extraordinary courage and tenacity. And she is an inspiration. From nursing wounded Allied servicemen, de Jongh will go on to establish the most famous escape line of the Second World War, saving the lives of more than 800 airmen and soldiers stranded behind enemy lines. The risks, however, will be enormous. The cost, unspeakably tragic. Her story is shot through with the constant terror of discovery and interception - of late-night knocks at the door, of disastrous moonlit river crossings, Gestapo infiltrators, firing squads and concentration camps. It is also a classic true story of fear overcome by giddying bravery. Originally published shortly after the war, Little Cyclone is a mesmerising tale of the best of humanity in the most unforgiving circumstances: a remarkable and inspiring account to rival the most dramatic of thrillers. Royalties from the sale of this book will go to the Airey Neave Trust.
Download or read book Escape from Hitler s Europe written by George Watt and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Air Forces Escape Evasion Society written by Air Forces Escape and Evasion Society and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 1992 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the brave American men who flew and were shot down in Europe during World War II, but were able to escape imprisonment due to the efforts of those who aided them. A source of information on the European underground resistance groups of World War II. The book contains rare photographs, maps, and war documents.
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 Freedom Line written by Peter Eisner and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2005-05-31 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Compared to Casablanca by the Washington Post, this a page–turning story of a group of resistance workers who secreted downed Allied fighter pilots through France and into safety in Spain during World War II. As war raged against Hitler's Germany, an increasing number of Allied fliers were shot down on missions against Nazi targets in occupied Europe. Many fliers parachuted safely behind enemy lines only to find themselves stranded and hunted down by the Gestapo. The Freedom Line traces the thrilling and true story of Robert Grimes, a 20–year–old American B–17 pilot whose plane was shot down over Belgium on Oct. 20, 1943. Wounded, disoriented, and scared, he was rescued by operatives of the Comet Line, a group of tenacious young women and men from Belgium, France, and Spain who joined forces to rescue the Allied aircrews and take them to safety. And on Christmas Eve 1943, he and a group of fellow Americans faced unexpected sudden danger and tragedy on the border between France and Spain. The road to safety was a treacherous journey by train, by bicycle, and on foot that stretched hundreds of miles across occupied France to the Pyrenees Mountains at the Spanish border. Armed with guile and spirit, the selfless civilian fighters of the Comet Line had risked their lives to create this underground railroad, and by this time in the war, they had saved hundreds of Americans, British, Australians, and other Allied airmen. Based on interviews with the survivors and in–depth archival research, The Freedom Line is the story of a group of friends who chose to act on their own out of a deep respect for liberty and human dignity. Theirs was a courage that presumed to take on a fearfully powerful foe with few defences.
Download or read book The Escape Line written by Megan Koreman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-09 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Of all the resistance organizations that operated during the war, about which much has been written, one stands out for its transnational character, the diversity of the tasks its members took on, and the fact that, unlike many of the known evasion lines, it was not directed by Allied officers, but rather by group of ordinary citizens. Between 1942 and 1945, they formed a network to smuggle Dutch Jews and others targeted by the Nazis south into France, via Paris, and then to Switzerland. This network became known as the Dutch-Paris Escape Line, eventually growing to include 300 people and expanding its reach into Spain. Led by Jean Weidner, a Dutchman living in France, many lacked any experience in clandestine operations or military tactics, and yet they became one of the most effective resistance groups of the Second World War. Dutch-Paris largely improvised its operations-scrounging for food on the black market, forging documents, and raising cash. Hunted relentlessly by the Nazis, some were even captured and tortured. In addition to Jews, those it helped escape the clutches of the Nazis included resistance fighters, political foes, Allied airmen, and young men looking to get to London to enlist. As the need grew more desperate, so did the bravery of those who rose to meet it. Using recently declassified archives, The Escape Line tells the story of the Dutch-Paris and the thousands of people it saved during World War II. Author Megan Koreman, who was given exclusive access to many of the archives, is herself the daughter of Dutch parents who were part of the resistance.
Download or read book Escape Through the Pyrenees written by Lisa Fittko and published by Northwestern University Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Story of a high school teacher whose students (underprivileged and Hispanic) have set standards in mathematics American education. A gripping memoir of German-Jewish leftist Fittko's life as an alien her path from concentration camp internee to underground rescue operative (the great philosopher and was one of many whom she and her comrades saved). Translated from the German edition of 1985 (Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich). Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Download or read book Silent Heroes written by Sherri Greene Ottis and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2014-07-11 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Home Run written by John Nichol and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2007-03-15 with total page 613 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout the Second World War, thousands found themselves cut off behind the lines in Nazi-occupied Europe — soldiers were left stranded on beaches after the chaotic evacuation of Dunkirk, airmen flying operations against the Germans were blasted out of the sky by flak and fighters. They were alone and on the run in enemy territory with just one goal — to get back to Britain and to safety. Some made solitary treks through hundreds of miles of enemy territory, others attempted precarious sea crossings in stolen boats. Many placed their lives in the hands of brave civilians who risked the wrath of a brutal regime if they dared to offer assistance. Life for the evaders hung in the balance and if they were to survive they had to rely on guile and sheer luck.John Nichol and Tony Rennell tell the dramatic story of the heroes who made it home . . . and those who did not.
Download or read book Hitler s Furies written by Wendy Lower and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2013 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: About the participation of German women in World War II and in the Holocaust.
Download or read book Saturday at M I 9 written by Airey Neave and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2010-04-30 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of Flames of Calais details life in the top-secret department of Britain’s War Office during World War II in this military memoir. Airey Neave, who in the last two years of the war was the chief organizer at M.I.9, gives his inside story of the underground escape lines in occupied North-West Europe, which returned over 4,000 Allied servicemen to Britain during the Second World War. He describes how the escape lines began in the first dark days of German occupation and how, until the end of the war, thousands of ordinary men and women made their own contribution to the Allied victory by hiding and feeding men and guiding them to safety. Neave was the first British POW to make a “home run” from Colditz Castle. On his return, he joined M.I.9 adopting the code name “Saturday.” He also served with the Nuremburg War Crimes Tribunal. Tragically Airey Neave’s life was cut short by the IRA who assassinated him in 1979 when he was one of Margaret Thatcher’s closest political allies. Praise for Saturday at M.I.9 “There isn’t a page in the book which isn’t exciting in incident, wise in judgment, and absorbing through its human involvement.” —The Times Literary Supplement (UK)
Download or read book The Night of the Comet written by George Bishop (Jr.) and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fourteen-year-old Alan Broussard is swept up in his science teacher father's community-wide comet-watching activities, which illuminate for the young teen his father's inadequacies, his mother's unhappiness, and his own loss of innocence.
Download or read book Cruel Crossing written by Edward Stourton and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2023-11-07 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A chronicle of the perilous European mountain escape route used during World War II, with epic stories from survivors and their families. After the Nazi invasion of Belgium in 1940, an underground network was established to help British servicemen escape German-occupied Europe. As the war progressed, others began using the secret route as well, traveling to the south of France, over the Pyrenees mountains, and into neutral Spain. The Chemin de la Liberté runs forty miles across the central Pyrenees. Since 1994, it has been hiked each July to commemorate those who made the courageous journey during the Nazi occupation of France. BBC Radio presenter Edward Stourton made the trek in 2011, and from his fellow hikers, he uncovered amazing stories of wartime bravery and perseverance. In Cruel Crossing, Stourton draws on interviews with survivors, as well as family members of those who were there, to paint a history of this little-known aspect of World War II. It is colored by tales of hardship from soldiers trapped behind enemy lines, persecuted Jews fleeing Hitler and Vichy France, and bold resistance fighters aiding their escape. There are scrambles across rooftops in the dead of night, drops from speeding trains, treachery, murder, romance, and of course, heroism. These personal stories offer a dramatic and moving trip through the past, preserving the memories of those who endured so much to gain back their freedom. Praise for Cruel Crossing “Stourton writes evocatively and with sensitivity of the people who made the arduous trek. . . . An engaging collection of tales.” —Daily Express “In Mr. Stourton’s hands, the Pyrenees become a grim amphitheatre for heroism and betrayal, collusion and rebellion. . . . Cruel Crossing recaptures much of the adventure and the fun, as well as the horror and the bitterness, as it brilliantly conjures up the voices of the past.” —Country Life “Heart-breaking and breath-taking . . . thoroughly moving and very readable.” —Simon Mawer, author of The Glass Room “An important book packed with poignant stories, remarkable characters and uncomfortable truths.” —Clare Mulley, author of The Spy Who Loved
Download or read book The Nightingale written by Kristin Hannah and published by Macmillan Audio. This book was released on 2015-02-03 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In love we find out who we want to be. In war we find out who we are. FRANCE, 1939 In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says goodbye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn't believe that the Nazis will invade France...but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When a German captain requisitions Vianne's home, she and her daughter must live with the enemy or lose everything. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates all around them, she is forced to make one impossible choice after another to keep her family alive. Vianne's sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old girl, searching for purpose with all the reckless passion of youth. While thousands of Parisians march into the unknown terrors of war, she meets Gäetan, a partisan who believes the French can fight the Nazis from within France, and she falls in love as only the young can...completely. But when he betrays her, Isabelle joins the Resistance and never looks back, risking her life time and again to save others. With courage, grace and powerful insight, bestselling author Kristin Hannah captures the epic panorama of WWII and illuminates an intimate part of history seldom seen: the women's war. The Nightingale tells the stories of two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals, passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path toward survival, love, and freedom in German-occupied, war-torn France--a heartbreakingly beautiful novel that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the durability of women. It is a novel for everyone, a novel for a lifetime.
Download or read book An American Heroine in the French Resistance written by Virginia D'Albert-Lake and published by Fordham Univ Press. This book was released on 2009-08-25 with total page 589 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This account by a woman who fought the Nazis alongside her husband is “an indelible portrait of extraordinary strength of character” (The New Yorker). Virginia Roush fell in love with Philippe d’Albert-Lake during a visit to France in 1936; they married soon after. In 1943, they both joined the Resistance, where Virginia put her life in jeopardy as she sheltered downed airmen and later survived a Nazi prison camp. After the war, she stayed in France with Philippe, and was awarded the Légion d’Honneur and the Medal of Honor. This book includes two rare documents—Virginia’s diary of wartime France until her capture in 1944, and her prison memoir written immediately after the war. Together they offer “an invaluable record of the workings of the French Resistance by one of the very few American women who participated in it” (Providence Journal). “A sharply etched and moving story of love, companionship, commitment, and sacrifice . . . This beautifully edited diary and memoir throw an original light on the French Resistance.” —Robert Gildea, author of Marianne in Chains: In Search of the German Occupation, 1940–1945 “At once a stunning self-portrait and dramatic narrative of a valorous young American woman . . . an exciting and gripping story.” —Walter Cronkite
Download or read book The Comet Seekers written by Helen Sedgwick and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2016-10-11 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A magical, intoxicating debut novel, both intimate and epic, that intertwines the past, present, and future of two lovers bound by the passing of great comets overhead and a coterie of remarkable ancestors. Róisín and François are immediately drawn to each other when they meet at a remote research base on the frozen ice sheets of Antarctica. At first glance, the pair could not be more different. Older by a few years, Róisín, a daughter of Ireland and a peripatetic astronomer, joins the science team to observe the fracturing of a comet overhead. François, the base’s chef, has just left his birthplace in Bayeux, France, for only the second time in his life. Yet devastating tragedy and the longing for a fresh start, which they share, as well as an indelible but unknown bond that stretches back centuries, connect them to each other. Helen Sedgwick carefully unfolds their surprisingly intertwined paths, moving forward and back through time to reveal how these lovers’ destinies have long been tied to each other by the skies—the arrival of comets great and small. In telling Róisín and François’s story, Sedgwick illuminates the lives of their ancestors, showing how strangers can be connected and ghosts can be real, and how the way we choose to see the world can be as desolate or as beautiful as the comets themselves. A mesmerizing, skillfully crafted, and emotionally perceptive novel that explores the choices we make, the connections we miss, and the ties that inextricably join our fates, The Comet Seekers reflects how the shifting cosmos unite us all through life, beyond death, and across the whole of time.
