Zero Night: The Untold Story of World War Two's Greatest Escape: The Untold Story of World War Two's Greatest Escape

by Mark Felton

Overview

A thrilling, moment by moment account of an epic World War II escape and the real-life adventures that followed.

On August 30, 1942 - 'Zero Night' - 40 Allied officers staged the most audacious mass escape of World War II. Months of meticulous planning and secret training hung in the balance during three minutes of mayhem as the officers boldly stormed the huge double fences at Oflag Prison. Employing wooden ladders and bridges previously disguised as bookshelves, the highly coordinated effort succeeded and set 36 men free into the German countryside. Later known as the 'Warburg Wire Job', fellow prisoner and fighter ace Douglas Bader once described the attempt as 'the most brilliant escape conception of this war'.

The first author to tackle this remarkable story in detail, historian Mark Felton brilliantly evokes the suspense of the escape and the adventures of those escapees who managed to elude the Germans, as well as the courage of the civilians who risked their lives to help them in enemy territory. Fantastically intimate and told with a novelist's eye for drama and detail, this rip-roaring adventure is all the more thrilling because it really happened.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250073747
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/25/2015
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	8.30(w) x 5.50(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Mark Felton has written over a dozen books on prisoners of war, Japanese war crimes and Nazi war criminals, and writes regularly for magazines such as Military History Monthly and World War II including China Station: The British Military in the Middle Kingdom, 1839-1997. After almost a decade teaching in Shanghai he has returned to Colechester, England where he lives with his wife and son.

Table of Contents

Prologue

1 Barbed Wire Horizon

2 Trial and Error

3 The Wire

4 Short Circuit

5 Diversions

6 'Big X'

7 Operation Timber

8 Practice Makes Perfect

9 The Road Less Travelled

10 Pack Up Your Troubles

11 Fifteen Yards to Freedom

12 Zero Night

12 'Another British Evacuation'

14 A Walk in the Woods

15 'Hande Hoch!'

16 The Bitter Road

17 Three Blind Mice

18 Comet Line

19 The Last Frontier

Epilogue

Editorial Reviews

In this exciting book, Felton has captivatingly captured the bravery of the prisoners.” —Kirkus Reviews

“This is undeniably history as it should be told and a thundering good read.” —The Daily Mail (UK)

“Fans of the film The Great Escape (and frankly who isn't?) will love this book” —History of War

“Action-packed...a fitting tribute to the ingenuity of the escapees and of the brave civilians who subsequently assisted them” —Good Book Guide

“A fresh light on the POW escape, focusing on the individual stories and characters to create a real' great escape” —Military History

“For once, the book's blurb is accurate in describing Felton's racy work as 'a rip-roaring adventure, all the more thrilling for being true'.” —Newcastle Herald (UK)

From the Publisher

★ 2015-06-04
Military historian Felton (China Station: The British Military in the Middle Kingdom, 2013, etc.) delivers a page-turner about one particularly daring escape from a Nazi POW camp during World War II. The men who populated the "vast enclosure" of Oflag VI-B in Warburg had mostly been captured in actions at Dunkirk, Crete, and northern France. There were nearly 3,000 prisoners, all officers except for 400 "other ranks." What makes this story particularly absorbing is the author's use of diaries and interviews to re-create dialogue. These extraordinary men were the most determined escape artists in captivity, and Oflag VI-B was especially built in 1941 to contain them. Their ingenuity, creativity, resourcefulness, and daring would make for great fiction—but it's all true. At the beginning of the plot, an "X" committee controlled how many tunnels were being dug. The perimeter of the camp was guarded by two parallel fences 12 feet high, with a wire-filled void between to deter climbing. The group's greatest escape attempt was the brainchild of Maj. Tom Stallard, who proposed to take hundreds of men out in one fell swoop. His "ladder," based on medieval siege engines, would reach the top of the fence, and a bridge would span the gap. Those involved set to work, creating rope from the twine binding Red Cross boxes and stealing wood and nails from camp structures. They even concealed the ladder as shelving in the music hut. The greatest contribution came when Capt. Kenneth Searle noticed a major unfused spur line leading to the cobbler's hut, an oversight that would enable him to short out perimeter lights to enable the escape. The author grippingly tracks the evaders' trek to freedom, an event that would warrant a book in itself. Even the epilogue will bring a smile. In this exciting book, Felton has captivatingly captured the bravery of the prisoners.

Kirkus Reviews