Behind Barbed Wire 1946 Lt. Morris J. Roy ~ Personal Narratives of WWII Allied POW Airmen held at Stalag Luft I ~ History, Memoirs

Title: Behind Barbed Wire
Author: Lt. Morris J. Roy [et al.]
Publication: New York: Richard R. Smith, 1946

Description: First Edition. Blue cloth boards with gilt lettering and pictorial of a POW camp watchtower in bottom corner of front cover. Some blemishing and minor soiling to spine and covers. Interior is clean and unmarked. Illustrated throughout with photographs and numerous sketches (some in color) made by a handful of POWs; includes the foldout facsimile of POW-WOW, the camp newspaper. Unnumbered pagination. [328] pages.

From the Foreword: "This book is an authentic record of and for those combat airmen in the European Theatre of Operations who, as prisoners of war, were confined in Stalag Luft I, Barth, Germany. It was written there, the illustrations were drawn there, and the photographs taken there. It contains a Directory of the men confined in the camp, and their home addresses -- as nearly complete a directory as it was possible to gather under existing circumstances.

Part I comprises the stories of twelve flight missions that ended in disaster over enemy territory, each told by a participant who escaped death; and the experiences of ''Joe Flieger,'' typical downed airman, from the moment of landing until he reached Barth -- experiences which might well be a composite of those of the twelve narrators...

Part II is in two sections. The first is the exciting story of a flyer who, aided by the French underground, managed for weeks to evade capture and who, finally seized, was set free miraculously, though only temporarily, by Allied bombs. He, too, got to Barth eventually. The second section, record the removal across the Baltic, under Russian pressure, of a group of air prisoners from an East Prussian camp -- a record replete with German brutality. Some of this group reached Barth.

Part III is the story of life at Barth, ending with liberation by the Russians, in so far as that story can be told."

Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Very Good

Keywords: POW, Prisoner of War, World War II, WWII, Stalag Luft I, captured airmen, Pomerania, Barth, airmen, Allied soldiers, pilots, personal narrative,