NEW DELHI, Nov 18:
The most audacious mass escape of World War II by 40 officers from Britain, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa from a German prisoner-of-war camp is now being described in details in a new book.
On the night of August 30, 1942, these officers staged the boldest and riskiest mass escape during the war by crossing the huge perimeter fences of the Oflag VI-B camp in Warburg using wooden scaling contraptions instead of tunnelling.
“Zero Night: The Untold Story of the Second World War’s Most Daring Great Escape” by historian Mark Felton is billed as the first book published on the most dangerous mass escape of World War II.
This was the notorious ‘Warburg Wire Job’, described by fellow prisoner and fighter ace Douglas Bader as ‘the most brilliant escape conception of this war’.
Months of meticulous planning and secret training hung in the balance during three minutes of mayhem as the prisoners charged the camp’s double perimeter fences.
Published by Icon Books, the rip-roaring “Zero Night is distributed by in India by Penguin Books.
Telling this remarkable story in full for the first time, historian Felton evokes the suspense of the escape itself and the adventures of those who eluded the Germans, as well as the courage of the civilians who risked their lives to help them in enemy territory.
Working in secret, the escapers created a complex and daring plan, manufactured civilian clothing and designed and built huge wooden scaling contraptions. After weeks of secret training, four teams of officers charged the camp’s double perimeter fences armed with the ingenious climbing contraptions and set about launching the boldest escape on ‘Zero Night’ the Germans had yet seen.
The small group of tremendously brave and resourceful young army, navy and RAF officers managed to scramble over the extensive barbed wire fences and ran off into the darkness pursued by German bullets.
Some stayed gone for over 10 days, having extraordinary adventures before being recaptured, while three made a ‘home run’ to England, the same number as in the more famous ‘Great Escape’ in 1944.
Felton was born in the army garrison town of Colchester in 1974. He 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.
He is the author of “Today is a Good Day to Fight”, an acclaimed history of the American west and “Japan’s Gestapo.”
His most recent book is “China Station: The British Military in the Middle Kingdom, 1839–1997”. (PTI)
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