Andrew Carswell

In January, 1943 an 18 year old Carswell was piloting a Lancaster bomber to Berlin. Before they got to the target they were downed by flak. Into the dark, cold, winter night the crew jumped from their flaming plane. After failing to find shelter and suffering from the severe cold, Carswell gave himself up to a farmer and his wife. From there he was sent to a POW camp for the RAF.

Immediately he planned to escape and soon did. Captured, he returned to the POW camp and started planning again. Another attempt and recaptured again. These escapes last days and he and his companions covered great distances and and experienced many funny and terrifying incidents along the way.

This memoir is the best description of daily life in a German run POW camp that I have read covering the shelter, food, treatment by the guards and hygiene including detailed descriptions of the toilets. While life was boring and disgusting in this camp, it was nothing like the Russian POW's or Holocaust victims experienced in their camps. In fact one thing that comes out many times in this book is the kindness of the German civilians and in some cases German soldiers to the Allied airmen.

As an example, the German guard who brought them back to camp after their capture, based on his own experience escaping the Russians, explained to them the mistakes that they made and how to be more successful the next time. The farmer's wife fed him and gave him a blanket the night his plane crashed. Other guards felt uncomfortable when he was mistreated by the SS interrogators and on the long winter trek near the end of the war, German soldiers did much to save ill airmen from almost certain death.

This also a truly remarkable look at life in Germany during the war for the German civilian as seen through the eyes of a fleeing Allied airman.… (más)