July, 1918. The most heavily guarded POW camp in the world.
Surrounded by steel palisades and barbed-wire fences, patrolled by ferocious dogs and armed guards with orders to shoot to kill, Holzminden was a brutal punishment camp. To escape would take boundless ingenuity and nerves of steel.
Many tried. Prisoners used sardine-tin openers to pick locks, forged documents, sent messages using milk as an invisible ink, and created fake uniforms and elaborate disguises. Every attempt failed, leading only to ever-tighter defences.
But on the night of 23 July 1918, twenty-nine undaunted Allied prisoners achieved the impossible. They had spent nine months using cutlery to move tonnes of earth, clay and stone, digging a tunnel over 150 feet long under the walls and barbed-wire fences, to the farmland beyond.
This is the fascinating story of how they did it - and of the many who had failed before them. Neil Hanson provides a rare insight into the minds of these prisoners of war, revealing their resourcefulness, courage and persistence - and inexhaustible good humour.
- ISBN10 1446422208
- ISBN13 9781446422205
- Publish Date 24 June 2011 (first published 9 June 2011)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 10 August 2021
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Transworld Publishers Ltd
- Imprint Transworld Digital
- Format eBook
- Pages 416
- Language English