The Great Escape

One night in 1944, eighty airmen escaped a German POW compound in Poland. The event became known as "The Great Escape." Ted Barris writes of the planners, task leaders, and key players in the escape attempt, those who got away, those who didn't, and their families at home.

A Nobel Prize–winning economist tells the remarkable story of how the world has grown healthier, wealthier, but also more unequal over the past two and half centuries The world is a better place than it used to be. People are healthier, wealthier, and live longer. Yet the escapes from destitution by so many has left gaping inequalities between people and nations. In The Great Escape, Nobel Prize–winning economist Angus Deaton—one of the foremost experts on economic development and on poverty—tells the remarkable story of how, beginning 250 years ago, some parts of the world experienced sustained progress, opening up gaps and setting the stage for today's disproportionately unequal world. Deaton takes an in-depth look at the historical and ongoing patterns behind the health and wealth of nations, and addresses what needs to be done to help those left behind. Deaton describes vast innovations and wrenching setbacks: the successes of antibiotics, pest control, vaccinations, and clean water on the one hand, and disastrous famines and the HIV/AIDS epidemic on the other. He examines the United States, a nation that has prospered but is today experiencing slower growth and increasing inequality. He also considers how economic growth in India and China has improved the lives of more than a billion people. Deaton argues that international aid has been ineffective and even harmful. He suggests alternative efforts—including reforming incentives to drug companies and lifting trade restrictions—that will allow the developing world to bring about its own Great Escape. Demonstrating how changes in health and living standards have transformed our lives, The Great Escape is a powerful guide to addressing the well-being of all nations.

The famous story of mass escape from a WWII German PoW camp that inspired the classic film. One of the most famous true stories from the last war, The GREAT ESCAPE tells how more than six hundred men in a German prisoner-of-war camp worked together to achieve an extraordinary break-out. Every night for a year they dug tunnels, and those who weren't digging forged passports, drew maps, faked weapons and tailored German uniforms and civilian clothes to wear once they had escaped. All of this was conducted under the very noses of their prison guards. When the right night came, the actual escape itself was timed to the split second - but of course, not everything went according to plan...

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

The “intensely gripping story” of John von Neumann, Leo Szilard, Arthur Koestler, and six other world-renowned Hungarian Jews who fled the Nazis (The Washington Post Book World). In this book, New York Times–bestselling author Kati Marton tells the stunning tale of nine men who grew up in Budapest’s brief Golden Age, then, driven from Hungary by anti-Semitism, fled to the West, especially to the United States, and changed the world. These nine men, each celebrated for individual achievements, were part of a unique group who grew up in a time and place that will never come again. Four helped usher in the nuclear age and the computer, two were major movie myth-makers, two were immortal photographers, and one was a seminal writer. From a Peabody Award–winning journalist and finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award, The Great Escape is a groundbreaking, poignant American story and an important untold chapter of the tumultuous last century. “Describes the crossroads where art and politics meet, the perils of dictatorship and the horrors of war, all of it punctuated by the frantic struggle to create the atomic bomb. . . . Deserves a special place on bookshelves alongside Budapest 1900.” —The New York Times Book Review “By looking at these nine lives—salvaged, and crucial—Marton provides a moving measure of how much was lost.” —The New Yorker “[Marton has] a keen understanding of what it means to leave one’s country behind.” —The Seattle Times “A haunting tale of the wartime Hungarian diaspora. . . . Marton writes beautifully.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Filled with a number of wonderful anecdotes.” —Chicago Sun-Times “An engrossing book.” —Library Journal

The Great Escape is a gripping and heartwarming story for 9+ readers about three pets who are separately from their beloved owners in Second World War London, fleeing to the countryside to survive. Perfect for fans of Michael Morpurgo's War Horse and Lauren St John. BUSTER is a lively Jack Russell TIGER is a feisty white and ginger tom ROSE is a faithful Collie Robert and Lucy Edwards love their pets more than anything; but the threat of the Second World War forces them to flee to Devon - leaving their animals behind. And as the air raid sirens sound over London, the frightened animals are sent to be put down. Buster, Tiger and Rose make a daring escape but with danger at every turn, can the trio make it across the country as it prepares for battle - and cheat death for the second time? Praise for Megan Rix: 'If you love Michael Morpurgo, you will enjoy this' Express 'A moving tale told with warmth, kindliness and lashings of good sense that lovers of Dick King-Smith will especially appreciate' The Times 'Every now and then a writer comes along with a unique way of storytelling . . . Meet Megan Rix . . . her novels are deeply moving and will strike a chord with animal lovers.' LoveReading About the author: Megan Rix lives in England with her husband, and their adorable dogs, Traffy and Bella. Also available by Megan Rix: The Great Escape, The Victory Dogs. www.meganrix.com

The first full-length study of the iconic 1960s film The Great Escape and its place in Hollywood and American history. Escaped POW Virgil Hilts (Steve McQueen) on a stolen motorcycle jumps an imposing barbed wire fence—caught on film, the act and its aftermath have become an unforgettable symbol of triumph as well as defeat for 1960s America. Combining production and reception history with close reading, Dreams of Flight offers the first full-length study of The Great Escape, the classic film based on a true story of Allied prisoners who hatched an audacious plan to divert and thwart the Wehrmacht and escape into the nearby countryside. Through breezy prose and pithy analysis, Dana Polan centers The Great Escape within American cultural and intellectual history, drawing a vivid picture of the country in the 1960s. We see a nation grappling with its own military history, a society undergoing significant shifts in its culture and identity, and a film industry in transition from Old Hollywood's big-budget runaway studio films to the slow interior cinema of New Hollywood. Dreams of Flight combines this context with fan anecdotes and a close study of filmic style to bring readers into the film and trace its wide-reaching influence. Polan examines the production history, including prior adaptations in radio and television of celebrated author Paul Brickhill's original nonfiction book about the escape, and he compares the cinematic fiction to the real events of the escape in 1944. Dreams of Flight also traces the afterlife of The Great Escape in the many subsequent movies, TV commercials, and cartoons that reference it, whether reverentially or with humor.

The gripping, vividly told story of the largest prisoner of war escape in of the Second World War – organized by an Australian bank clerk, a British jazz pianist and an American spy. In August 1944, the most successful POW escape of the Second World War took place - 106 Allied prisoners were freed from a camp in Maribor, in present-day Slovenia. The escape was organized not by officers, but by two ordinary soldiers: Australian Ralph Churches (a bank clerk before the war) and Londoner Les Laws (a jazz pianist by profession), with the help of U.S. intelligence officer Franklin Lindsay. The American was on a mission to work with the partisans: a group who moved like ghosts through the Alps, ambushing and evading Nazi forces. Told here for the first time is the story of how these three men came together – along with the partisans – to plan and execute the escape is told here for the first time. The Greatest Escape, written by Ralph Churches’ son Neil, takes us from Ralph and Les’s capture in Greece in 1941 and their brutal journey to Maribor, with many POWs dying along the way, to the horror of seeing Russian prisoners starved to death in the camp. The book uncovers the hidden story of Allied intelligence operations in Slovenia, and shows how Ralph became involved. We follow the escapees on a nail-biting 160-mile journey across the Alps, pursued by German soldiers, ambushed and betrayed. And yet, of the 106 men who escaped, 100 made it to safety. Thanks to research across seven countries, The Greatest Escape is no longer a secret. It is one of the most remarkable adventure stories of the last century.