Escape from Hitler

I was on a train when a German soldier started screaming at me and stabbed me in the ribs with his machine gun. I thought it was over, the game was over... Pilot Bob Frost, whose plane was shot down, faced danger at every turn as he escaped from France and over the Pyrenees. Prisoner of war Len Harley escaped in Italy, surviving months in hiding, then a perilous climb over the mountains of the Abruzzo, with German forces in close pursuit. These are just some of the stories told in moving detail by Monty Halls, who takes us along the paths to freedom out of occupied Europe, from the massive French escape lines to the lesser-known routes in Italy and Slovenia. Escaping Hitler tells the story of spies and traitors, the extraordinary heroism of those who ran the escape routes and sheltered the fugitives, and great feats of endurance. In Operation Gallia, the British Special Service Service (SAS) fought forty days behind enemy lines in Italy, then escaped exhausted and pursued through the Apennines. In Slovenia, Australian POW Ralph Churches and British POW Les Laws orchestrated the largest successful Allied escape of World War II. Combining new research, interviews with survivors, and his own experience of walking the trail, Monty brings the past to life in this dramatic and captivating slice of military history.