Thread: WW2 PoW stuff:
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Old 07-18-22, 08:48 PM   #202
Kptlt. Neuerburg
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I've managed to get the trilogy of books written by Airey Neave.


I also got "The Last Escaper" by Peter Tunstall.


I found it quite interesting to read the accounts of two POW's who where in the same camps (although not always the same time) other then Colditz. Neave was a Royal Army officer who was captured in Calais after having being sent there during the final days of the fall of France in 1940. His writing after being captured was one of depression, sadness and failure which continued up until he made a "home run" during an escape with a Dutch officer. Neave nearly gave the game away by doing something that while today would see quite absurd was the reality then, he was almost caught for eating a bar of chocolate! Tunstall by contrast was a Handley Page bomber pilot who crash landed on the Dutch coast after an error in navigation caused him to land on a beach due to running out of fuel (the navigator was related to Lord Haw Haw and it was this same navigator who swore that they where over the Irish coast), in spite of a number of escape attempts Tunstall never successfully managed to escape but did rack up 415 consecutive days in the "cooler" manly for a past time known as "Goon Baiting" or in other words annoying the out of Jerry even at gunpoint. Tunstall offers a contrast to Neave as well aside from them being from different parts of the British military, their stories while being intertwined are very much light and dark.
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