Surviving Hell

Capture-to-repatriation memoir of an U.S. Air Force combat pilot who spent six years as a prisoner of war in the infamous Hanoi Hilton during the Vietnam War.

On April 19, 1967, Air Force Colonel Leo Thorsness was on a mission over North Vietnam when his wingman was shot down by an enemy MiG, which then lined up for a gunnery pass on the two American pilots who had bailed out. Although his F 105 was not designed for aerial combat, Thorsness engaged the MiG and destroyed it. Spotting four more MiGs, he fought his way through a barrage of North Vietnamese SAMs to engage them too, shooting down one and driving off the others. For this action, Thorsness was awarded the Medal of Honor. But he didn’t learn about it until years later—by a “tap code” coming through prison walls—because on April 30, Thorsness was shot down, captured, and transported to the Hanoi Hilton. Surviving Hell recounts a six-year captivity marked by hours of brutal torture and days of agonizing boredom. With a novelist’s eye for character and detail, Thorsness describes how he and other American POWs strove to keep their humanity. Thrown into solitary confinement for refusing to bow down to his captors, for instance, he disciplined his mind by memorizing long passages of poetry that other prisoners sent him by tap code. Filled with hope and humor, Surviving Hell is an eloquent story of resistance and survival. No other book about American POWs has described so well the strategies these remarkable men used in their daily effort to maintain their dignity. With resilience and resourcefulness, they waged war by other means in the darkest days of a long captivity.

Surviving Hell is a harrowing account of Lieutenant Colonel William Miner, taken prisoner for 39 months after his unit surrendered to the Japanese on the island of Cebu, Philippines, during World War II. Despite losing every friend in his unit and suffering from torture and deprivation that would “warp men’s souls,” Bill Miner professed, “I am lucky. People fell beside me and people were blown apart beside me. Anywhere I went as a prisoner, I tried to be aware of the situation and use it the best I could to survive.” This fascinating and arresting true story features excerpts from Bill Miner’s personal prison diary, which he kept despite the accompanying risk of torture or even death, along with photos and post-war recollections.

Leslie Schwartz, born in Hungary in 1930, is a teenage survivor of Auschwitz and Dachau. He lost his entire immediate family in the Holocaust. His lifelong search for wholeness led him back to Germany, where his dream now is to leave a legacy of healing and conflict resolution. In 2013, Schwartz will be awarded Germany's highest civilian honor - The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. Book jacket.

The HLV virus, dubbed Hell Virus by the survivors, wiped out ninety percent of the population. Running low on supplies, Alyssa has to leave the safety of her sanctuary to find food. She’s ill-equipped to deal with a SHTF situation, and she’s nearly raped on her first run. A small squad of military men save her and take her in, with the stipulation she becomes a fully functioning member of their team. She wants to learn how to take care of herself, but she also finds herself wanting to take care of the soldiers in creative and unexpected ways. Life without pleasure is pointless, but when she’s already lost everything else, can she risk losing her heart to the group?

"I have never read a more heartfelt account of a women's battle with alcohol and its devastation." -- Reviewer The biggest demons live inside of us. Faith Smith has always had a problem with alcohol. At first, she didn't believe it was an issue, but slowly her life begins to unravel. Her job as a teacher hangs in the balance, her marriage begins to crumble, and she realizes that she's putting her addiction before even her own children. Faith knows she has to do something to regain control of her life. But her demons won't abandon her so easily. Struggling with mood swings and losing control of her mind, Faith must summon all of her courage to find the light at the end of the tunnel. But with her relationships collapsing beneath the weight of her alcoholism, is it too late for Faith to salvage her life? Told with a gritty realism that reflects the real daily struggles of people suffering from alcoholism, Surviving Hell is a gripping and thought-provoking story about one woman's fight against her inner demons.

Ted Taylor, 1st Battalion, The Rifle Brigade, was sent to France in May 1940 as part of Calais Force. Initially sent to open up supply lines to the rapidly retreating BEF, they soon found themselves defending Calais against the might of the 10th Panzer Division. Outnumbered by at least three to one they held out for 4 days until they ran out of ammunition and were forced to surrender.For the next five years Ted found himself part of the huge slave labour force in Poland under the administration of Stalag XXA and Stalag XXB. Life in the POW camps bore little resemblance to the cheerful films of the 1950s with casual brutality never far from the surface. As 1945 began and the war entered its final bloody phase, the POWs dared to believe that at last they might be going home. But fate had one more cruel trick to play.As the Russians approached rapidly from the east, the terrified Germans evacuated the camps and, in temperatures below -25c, began marching the malnourished, poorly-clothed POWs back across Europe. The infamous 'death marches' to freedom across the frozen, chaotic, war ravaged landscape of Eastern Europe had begun.