WW2 1st Edition Book: Escape And Liberation 1940-45 By A J Evans

For sale is a WW2 1st Edition Book: Escape And Liberation 1940-45 By A J Evans. This book was first published in December 1945 and is a first edition with the original dust cover. 

  The preface states:    “THE few stories of escapes and evasions which have been collected here must be looked upon simply as illustrations of some of the diffi culties and problems with which the prisoners in this war have been faced. The stories cover but a very small part of the ground; and have been taken almost at random out of many hundreds of such adventures.   In the first chapter an attempt has been made to compare the conditions and problems experi enced by prisoners in the 1940 war with those met by prisoners thirty years ago.   Of the men whose stories are told, many are dead. Barclay, Fowler, Pipkin, Rennie, Treacy, and Von Werra are all dead. It is a terrible loss of magnificent young men.   With the exception of Von Werra's adventure, these stories were told me by the men themselves, some immediately after their return to England that is to say, several years ago, and no record exists of many of the details except in my memory.   It is unlikely that the deeds of these escapers who are dead can ever be told more fully than they have been told here. If then some minor errors have crept in, I must ask the indulgence of my readers, but assure them that to the best of my knowledge I have told the truth and only the truth as each man told it to me. With re gard to evasion (a return from enemy occupied territory without having been a prisoner of war), it is obvious that the R.A.F. had by far the best opportunities for this type of escape.   Rennie, Barclay, Pipkin, Gay, and the three soldiers of the 51st were all evaders. With regard to escaping, the available space in this book has been almost equally divided between escapers of the Army and the R.A.F I regret that I have insufficient knowledge to include any Naval officer travelled successfully from his prison escapers from the Navy, though I know that one camp to the frontier, dressed in his own uniform, but with forged papers of a Bulgarian Naval officer. With real humour, which for fear of libel action I hesitate to call typical, he signe these papers with the name-I. Buggeroff, and arrived safely at his destination. It is, however, entirely against the spirit which animates all prisoners in their desire for liberty that there should be any rivalry in this matter of escaping be tween the Services. A young man taken prisoner by the enemy, from whatever Service he may come, is faced, as a prisoner, with the same basic problems, and all the comparisons are invidious   Part II is simply a description of my own ex periences during the last few days of the war when I was fortunate enough to be present at the liber ation of a few prisoner-of-war camps, both in our zone and in the Russian zone.   It would be very wrong to imagine that as a result with my contacts with the Russians I have anything but the highest respect both for Russian efficiency and for their friendly co-operation, in spite of the incidents sometimes amusing and sometimes rather frightening, which under the circumstances quite naturally occurred. It is in truth, very remarkable how unsuspicious and how friendly the Russians were on all occasions. Travelling through the Russian zone was not officially permitted, yet time after time after the mildest examination, we were treated with great courtesy and were allowed to proceed with every expression of friendship and goodwill.”   This is in good condition.   This will be sent via Royal Mail 1st class signed for and dispatched within two working days.