Book description
On November 8, 1943, U. S. Army nurse Agnes Jensen stepped out of a
cold rain in Catania, Sicily, into a C-53 transport plane. But she and
twelve other nurses never arrived in Bari, Italy, where they were to
transport wounded soldiers to hospitals farther from the front lines.
A violent storm and pursuit by German Messerschmitts led to a crash
landing in a remote part of Albania, leaving the nurses, their team of
medics, and the flight crew stranded in Nazi-occupied territory. What
followed was a dangerous nine-week game of hide-and-seek with the
enemy, a situation President Roosevelt monitored daily. Albanian
partisans aided the stranded Americans in the search for a British
Intelligence Mission, and the group began a long and hazardous journey
to the Adriatic coast. During the following weeks, they crossed
Albania's second highest mountain in a blizzard, were strafed by
German planes, managed to flee a town moments before it was bombed,
and watched helplessly as an attempt to airlift them out was foiled by
Nazi forces. Albanian Escape is the suspense-filled story of the only
group of Army flight nurses to have spent any length of time in
occupied territory during World War II. The nurses and flight crew
endured frigid weather, survived on little food, and literally wore
out their shoes trekking across the rugged countryside. Thrust into a
perilous situation and determined to survive, these women found
courage and strength in each other and in the kindness of Albanians
and guerrillas who hid them from the Germans.
"Illustrates the bravery and courage of the Albanian
Underground during the Second World War in it assistance to downed
American flyers.... Sheds light on a theater of operations that has
received very little coverage by historians in the United
States." -- Journal of Slavic Military Studies
