Description

8vo., First Edition, with 16 plates on 8, 6 illustrations and plans (5 full-page) and full-page map in the text; salmon cloth, backstrip lettered in blue, a very good, bright, clean copy in unclipped dustwrapper, the latter chipped at edges and lightly spotted on (predominantly white) rear panel. Bright copy of the original account of arguably the greatest POW story of WWII - the escape of no fewer than seventy-six Allied POW's from Stalag Luft III at Sagan in March 1944. Known ever since as the 'Great Escape', it was a gallant endeavour with a sordid ending, and has inspired a minor industry of research and publication, including John Sturges' immensely successful (though heavily fictionalised) feature film of 1963 starring Steve McQueen and Richard Attenborough. For a more recent update (incorporating the latest official documentation) see Burgess's 'The Longest Tunnel' (1990). AN UNDISPUTED CLASSIC OF WWII AND SCARCE IN THIS CONDITION. Enser, p. 148.