The Great Desert Escape

Download or read book The Great Desert Escape written by Keith Warren Lloyd and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-04-01 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dramatic, highly readable, and painstakingly researched, The Great Desert Escape brings to light a little-known escape by 25 determined German sailors from an American prisoner-of-war camp. The disciplined Germans tunneled unnoticed through rock-hard, sunbaked soil and crossed the unforgiving Arizona desert. They were heading for Mexico, where there were sympathizers who could help them return to the Fatherland. It was the only large-scale domestic escape by foreign prisoners in US history. Wrung from contemporary newspaper articles, interviews, and first-person accounts from escapees and the law enforcement officers who pursued them, The Great Desert Escape brings history to life. At the US Army’s prisoner-of-war camp at Papago Park just outside of Phoenix, life was, at the best of times, uneasy for the German Kreigsmariners. On the outside of their prison fences were Americans who wanted nothing more than to see them die slow deaths for their perceived roles in killing fathers and brothers in Europe. Many of these German prisoners had heard rumors of execution for those who escaped. On the inside were rabid Nazis determined to get home and continue the fight. At Papago Park in March 1944, a newly arrived prisoner who was believed to have divulged classified information to the Americans was murdered—hung in one of the barracks by seven of his fellow prisoners. The prisoners of war dug a tunnel 6 feet deep and 178 feet long, finishing in December 1944. Once free of the camp, the 25 Germans scattered. The cold and rainy weather caused several of the escapees to turn themselves in. One attempted to hitchhike his way into Phoenix, his accent betraying him. Others lived like coyotes among the rocks and caves overlooking Papago Park. All the while, the escapees were pursued by soldiers, federal agents, police and Native American trackers determined to stop them from reaching Mexico and freedom.

Download or read book The Greatest POW Escape Stories Ever Told written by Keith Warren Lloyd and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-12-01 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A gripping collection that showcases twelve of the most famous prisoner of war escapes in the history of modern warfare. Although these stories feature escapees of different nationalities, ideologies and allegiances, the reader will be captured by the common traits shared by all of these brave soldiers: loyalty to country and cause, tenacity, resourcefulness, and an abundant amount of courage.

Download or read book The Great Escape from Stalag Luft III written by Jens Müller and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2024-03-05 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A thrilling, first-person account of one of the most famous prison escapes of World War II. Jens Müller was one of only three men who successfully escaped from Stalag Luft III on the night of March 24, 1944—the breakout that later became the basis for the famous film The Great Escape. His memoir tells how Müller, a pilot in one of the RAF’s Norwegian squadrons, was shot down by the Luftwaffe over the English Channel in June 1942. After some days at sea in his Spitfire’s life raft, he made it to land in Belgium but was soon captured by the occupying Germans and sent as a prisoner of war to Stalag Luft III (in what is now Zagan, Poland). Müller vividly describes life in the camp, how the escapes were planned, and relates the compelling story of his personal breakout. Together with Per Bergsland, he managed to make it to the coast and stowed away on a ship to Gothenburg, Sweden. The two men eventually reached RAF Leuchars base in Scotland.

Download or read book Great Wartime Escapes and Rescues written by David W. Mills and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2019-05-17 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Students, military historians, and casual readers will all find this compelling collection useful in learning about escape strategies, hostage situations, and rescue operations during times of conflict. Great Wartime Escapes and Rescues tells the captivating stories of dozens of escapes and rescues from conflicts dating from the 16th century to present, with extensive coverage of the world wars of the 20th century and the Vietnam War. In addition, escapes and rescues related to terrorist activities and regional conflicts are featured. Some stories of escapes and rescues included in this work have been written about extensively and portrayed in films, including The Great Escape and Captain Phillips' rescue by Navy SEALs. Other stories are less widely known but just as absorbing. The book opens with a detailed introductory essay that illuminates the government policies and tactics various countries have used to rescue soldiers and civilians during wartime, as well as the diverse methods that prisoners of war have used to escape notorious camps and prisons. The entries, organized alphabetically, are augmented by engaging sidebars related to the escapes and rescues. The book also includes references to such sources as autobiographies, biographies, news accounts, and interviews with veterans.

Download or read book Edge of Taos Desert written by Mabel Dodge Luhan and published by UNM Press. This book was released on 1987-04-01 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1917 Mabel Sterne, patron of the arts and spokeswoman for the New York avant-garde, came to the Southwest seeking a new life. This autobiographical account, long out-of-print, of her first few months in New Mexico is a remarkable description of an Easterner's journey to the American West. It is also a great story of personal and philosophical transformation. The geography of New Mexico and the culture of the Pueblo Indians opened a new world for Mabel. She settled in Taos immediately and lived there the rest of her life. Much of this book describes her growing fascination with Antonio Luhan of Taos Pueblo, whom she subsequently married. Her descriptions of the appeal of primitive New Mexico to a world-weary New Yorker are still fresh and moving. "I finished it in a state of amazed revelation . . . it is so beautifully compact and consistent. . . . It is going to help many another woman and man to 'take life with the talons' and carry it high."--Ansel Adams

Download or read book The Confidence Men written by Margalit Fox and published by Random House. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The Great Escape for the Great War: the astonishing true story of two World War I prisoners who pulled off one of the most ingenious escapes of all time. FINALIST FOR THE EDGAR® AWARD • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, NPR • “Fox unspools Jones and Hill’s delightfully elaborate scheme in nail-biting episodes that advance like a narrative Rube Goldberg machine.”—The New York Times Book Review Imprisoned in a remote Turkish POW camp during World War I, having survived a two-month forced march and a terrifying shootout in the desert, two British officers, Harry Jones and Cedric Hill, join forces to bamboozle their iron-fisted captors. To stave off despair and boredom, Jones takes a handmade Ouija board and fakes elaborate séances for his fellow prisoners. Word gets around, and one day an Ottoman official approaches Jones with a query: Could Jones contact the spirit world to find a vast treasure rumored to be buried nearby? Jones, a trained lawyer, and Hill, a brilliant magician, use the Ouija board—and their keen understanding of the psychology of deception—to build a trap for their captors that will ultimately lead them to freedom. A gripping nonfiction thriller, The Confidence Men is the story of one of the only known con games played for a good cause—and of a profound but unlikely friendship. Had it not been for “the Great War,” Jones, the Oxford-educated son of a British lord, and Hill, a mechanic on an Australian sheep ranch, would never have met. But in pain, loneliness, hunger, and isolation, they formed a powerful emotional and intellectual alliance that saved both of their lives. Margalit Fox brings her “nose for interesting facts, the ability to construct a taut narrative arc, and a Dickens-level gift for concisely conveying personality” (Kathryn Schulz, New York) to this tale of psychological strategy that is rife with cunning, danger, and moments of high farce that rival anything in Catch-22.

Download or read book Travels in the Great Desert written by James Richardson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-15 with total page 985 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1970. Part of a collection on African Studies, this text is a narrative of the personal adventures of the author during a tour of nine months through the desert, amongst the Touaricks and other tribes of the Saharan people and includes a description of the oases and cities of Ghat, Ghadames and Mourzuk. This is Volume I of two.