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Author: Michael Lee Lanning
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0811769720
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 365
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Book Description
During World War II, some 10,000 American bombers and fighters were shot down over Europe. Of the crews aboard, 26,000 men were killed, while 30,000 survived being shot down only to be captured and made prisoners of war. Against the longest of odds, nearly 3,000 airmen made it to the ground alive, evaded capture, and escaped to safety. These men proudly called themselves the Blister Club. Drawing on tens of thousands of pages of mostly untapped documents in the National Archives, Michael Lee Lanning tells the story of these courageous airmen. They had received escape-and-evasion (E & E) training, and some were lucky enough to land with their E-&-E kits—but all bets were off once they hit the ground. They landed after an air catastrophe. The geography was usually unfamiliar. Civilians might or might not be trustworthy. German soldiers and Gestapo agents hunted down airmen as well as civilians who dared help them. If an airman abandoned his uniform for civilian garb, he forfeited Geneva Convention protections. Most faced the daunting task of escaping on foot across hundreds of miles. The fortunate connected with one of the established escape routes to Spain or Switzerland or across the English Channel, or they hooked up with the underground resistance or friendly civilians. Upon return to friendly lines, these men were often able to provide valuable intelligence about enemy troop dispositions and civilian morale. Many volunteered to fly again even though regulations prohibited it. The Blister Club is history with a punch. With a historian’s eye, Lanning covers the hows and whys of escape-and-evasion and aerial combat in the European theater, but the book also vividly captures the stories of the airmen who did the escaping and evading, including that of a young pilot named Chuck Yeager, who, during his own escape, aided the French Resistance and helped another downed airman to safety—and then begged to fly again, eventually securing Eisenhower’s approval to return to the air, where he achieved ace status. Stories of escape are popular, especially those set during World War II, as are stories of the war in the air. Combining both of these, The Blister Club should find an enthusiastic audience.
Author: Michael Lee Lanning
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0811769720
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 365
Get Book Here
Book Description
During World War II, some 10,000 American bombers and fighters were shot down over Europe. Of the crews aboard, 26,000 men were killed, while 30,000 survived being shot down only to be captured and made prisoners of war. Against the longest of odds, nearly 3,000 airmen made it to the ground alive, evaded capture, and escaped to safety. These men proudly called themselves the Blister Club. Drawing on tens of thousands of pages of mostly untapped documents in the National Archives, Michael Lee Lanning tells the story of these courageous airmen. They had received escape-and-evasion (E & E) training, and some were lucky enough to land with their E-&-E kits—but all bets were off once they hit the ground. They landed after an air catastrophe. The geography was usually unfamiliar. Civilians might or might not be trustworthy. German soldiers and Gestapo agents hunted down airmen as well as civilians who dared help them. If an airman abandoned his uniform for civilian garb, he forfeited Geneva Convention protections. Most faced the daunting task of escaping on foot across hundreds of miles. The fortunate connected with one of the established escape routes to Spain or Switzerland or across the English Channel, or they hooked up with the underground resistance or friendly civilians. Upon return to friendly lines, these men were often able to provide valuable intelligence about enemy troop dispositions and civilian morale. Many volunteered to fly again even though regulations prohibited it. The Blister Club is history with a punch. With a historian’s eye, Lanning covers the hows and whys of escape-and-evasion and aerial combat in the European theater, but the book also vividly captures the stories of the airmen who did the escaping and evading, including that of a young pilot named Chuck Yeager, who, during his own escape, aided the French Resistance and helped another downed airman to safety—and then begged to fly again, eventually securing Eisenhower’s approval to return to the air, where he achieved ace status. Stories of escape are popular, especially those set during World War II, as are stories of the war in the air. Combining both of these, The Blister Club should find an enthusiastic audience.
Author: Martin W. Bowman
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1473863244
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 508
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Book Description
This thrilling new volume from Martin Bowman focusses on British, Canadian, Australian and German soldiers and airmen who were captured during the First World War. Determined that they wouldnt spend the rest of the conflict incarcerated uselessly behind bars, they endeavored to escape. These are their stories.All aspects of prison life are covered here, and the author examines the various escape tactics that were employed by British soldiers and airmen held in PoW camps all over Germany and Turkey. In order to provide a balanced account, the author has also uncovered stories of German navy and army escapees who attempted to flee from England.Each chapter is preceded by an account which explains the types of camps used in Britain and Germany, the numbers involved, the food, the camp money system for worker prisoners and a general appreciation of the conditions and chronology. Firsthand accounts from the prisoners themselves are then woven into the picture, creating an authentic sense of the PoW experience.The emphasis of this unique book is placed on the human story of the main characters, the unparalleled action on the Western Front and the interaction and camaraderie experienced between soldiers and airmen held in prison camps in England, Germany and Turkey during the Second World War.
Author: Harvey E. Gann
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 204
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Book Description
Author: Sherri Greene Ottis
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813147980
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 244
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Book Description
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.
Author: Neal Bascomb
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0544936906
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 442
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Book Description
This “fast-paced account” of WWI airmen who escaped Germany’s most notorious POW camp is “expertly narrated” by the New York Times bestselling author (Kirkus, starred review). During World War I, Allied soldiers might avoid death only to find themselves in the abominable conditions of Germany’s many prison camps. The most infamous was Holzminden, a land-locked Alcatraz that housed the most escape-prone officers. Its commandant was a boorish tyrant named Karl Niemeyer, who swore that none should ever leave. Desperate to break out of “Hellminden”, a group of Allied prisoners hatch an audacious escape plan that requires a risky feat of engineering as well as a bevy of disguises, forged documents, and fake walls—not to mention steely resolve and total secrecy. Once beyond the watchtowers and round-the-clock patrols, they are then faced with a 150-mile dash through enemy-occupied territory toward free Holland. Drawing on never-before-seen memoirs and letters, historian Neal Bascomb “has unearthed a remarkable piece of hidden history, and told it perfectly. The story brims with adventure, suspense, daring, and heroism” (David Grann, New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon).
Author: Air Forces Escape and Evasion Society
Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
ISBN: 9781563110344
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 132
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Book Description
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.
Author: Seth Meyerowitz
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1592409296
Category : Airmen
Languages : en
Pages : 334
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Book Description
Documents the story of a World War II American Air Force turret-gunner who was one of two escapees when his team's plane was shot down near Cognac in 1943, tracing his harrowing six-month flight to safety across the Pyrenees under constant pursuit by the Gestapo.
Author: Ross E. Hofmann
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476665680
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 227
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Book Description
U.S. Navy Supply Corps Ensign Ross Hofmann had no idea what was in store for him when he arrived at Cavite Naval Base in October 1941. Two months later, Japanese forces struck the Philippines, destroying the base and forcing U.S. personnel to retreat to Bataan. There, Hofmann joined a makeshift unit of Army Aircorps ground personnel, U.S. Marines, U.S. sailors, U.S. Naval ground battalions and Filipinos to fight a Japanese force that landed nearby. In March 1942, with the fall of Bataan imminent, he traveled to Cebu to run supplies through the blockade of Bataan and Corregidor. Soon after his arrival, the Japanese landed on Cebu, forcing the Americans to retreat again. Hiking through jungles and crossing dangerous waters in barely seaworthy vessels, Hofmann avoided capture and reached an American base in Mindanao. He received orders to establish a seaplane base on Lake Lanao. As Japanese troops landed nearby, two seaplanes returning from Corregidor stopped to refuel, one of them hitting a submerged rock on take-off. In a harrowing race against the enemy advance, Hofmann and others worked feverishly to fix the plane and escape before the Japanese converged on Lake Lanao. This memoir recounts Hofmann's experiences in vivid detail. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.
Author: Jonathan F. Vance
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1784384399
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 525
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Book Description
The real history behind the classic war movie and the men who plotted the daring escape from a Nazi POW camp. Between dusk and dawn on the night of March 24th–25th 1944, a small army of Allied soldiers crawled through tunnels in Germany in a covert operation the likes of which the Third Reich had never seen. The prison break from Stalag Luft III in eastern Germany was the largest of its kind in the Second World War. Seventy-nine Allied soldiers and airmen made it outside the wire—but only three made it outside Nazi Germany. Fifty were executed by the Gestapo. In this book Jonathan Vance tells the incredible story that was made famous by the 1963 film The Great Escape. It is a classic tale of prisoners and their wardens in a battle of wits and wills. The brilliantly conceived escape plan is overshadowed only by the colorful, daring (and sometimes very funny) crew who executed it—literally under the noses of German guards. From the men’s first days in Stalag Luft III and the forming of bonds among them, to the tunnel building, amazing escape, and eventual capture, Vance’s history is a vivid, compelling look at one of the greatest “exfiltration” missions of all time. “Shows the variety and depth of the men sent into harm’s way during World War II, something emphasized by the population of Stalag Luft III. Most of the Allied POWs were flyers, with all the technical, tactical and planning skills that profession requires. Such men are independent thinkers, craving open air and wide-open spaces, which meant that an obsession with escape was almost inevitable.” —John D. Gresham
Author: Helen Fry
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300255926
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 365
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Book Description
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.
