[Mike Kelly]

The author of this book goes into great depth , he describes the background of the main characters in detail. Although the book could be viewed as a cynical history of the actual events , the years of research the author put into his project , have paid off . Because he went to the primary resources in the archives, this account is probably the best we will ever see. The Hollywood fairy story has unfortunately stained the past with a less than ideal account of the real events. The author is even critical of some of the exaggerated stories that were spun by the surviving escapees.

As described, some of the main high ranking German staff in the camp were borderline collaborators. After the escape, the camp commandant was tried by court marshal, he had continually informed the POW camp leaders of the very dangerous game they were playing, even writing a formal letter to Roger Bushell who was the POW escape leader. The prisoners had heard these warnings many times before, thinking it was just a bluff. The commandant informed the POW's that a mass escape was suicide and he actually advised Bushell to limit escapes to less than five people at any one time.

The Germans put into action, a special carefully prepared round up alert that had only been used once before - every policeman, soldier and other officials in the whole Reich were alerted . The round up was so effective, within 72 hours only a handful of escapees were still free. Deep snow and freezing conditions didn't help either.