Paul Brickhill

The Great Escape

"A tense, thrilling, fabulous tale."—Philadelphia Inquirer

They were American and British air force officers in a German prison camp. With only their bare hands and the crudest of homemade tools, they sank shafts, forged passports, faked weapons, and tailored German uniforms and civilian clothes. They developed a fantastic security system to protect themselves from German surveillance. It was a split-second operation as delicate and as deadly as a time bomb. It demanded the concentrated devotion and vigilance of more than six hundred men—every one of them, every minute, every hour, every day and night for more than a year. Made into the classic movie starring Steve McQueen. 16 pages of photographs.

"Absorbing...spine-tingling...puts the average war book so far in the shadow it's not even funny."—Dallas Times-Herald

"One of the great true stories of the war, and one of the greatest escape narratives of all time."—San Francisco Chronicle

"For sheer suspense, puts the fictioneers to shame."—Boston Globe