Book description
July, 1918. The most heavily guarded POW camp in the world.
Surrounded by steel palisades and barbed-wire fences, patrolled by
ferocious dogs and armed guards with orders to shoot to kill,
Holzminden was a brutal punishment camp. To escape would take
boundless ingenuity and nerves of steel.
Many tried. Prisoners used sardine-tin openers to pick locks, forged
documents, sent messages using milk as an invisible ink, and created
fake uniforms and elaborate disguises. Every attempt failed, leading
only to ever-tighter defences.
But on the night of 23 July 1918, twenty-nine undaunted Allied
prisoners achieved the impossible. They had spent nine months using
cutlery to move tonnes of earth, clay and stone, digging a tunnel over
150 feet long under the walls and barbed-wire fences, to the farmland
beyond.
This is the fascinating story of how they did it - and of the many
who had failed before them. Neil Hanson provides a rare insight into
the minds of these prisoners of war, revealing their resourcefulness,
courage and persistence - and inexhaustible good humour.
Neil Hanson is the author of several acclaimed works of narrative
history:
First Blitz, The Unknown Soldier, The Dreadful Judgement,
The Custom of the Sea
and
The Confident Hope of a Miracle.
He lives in Yorkshire with his family.
