Stalag Luft I

Stalag Luft One, was first published in 1947 as Vacation with Pay (and with the wonderfully tongue-in cheek subtitle: Being an account of my stay at the German rest camp for tired allied airmen at beautiful Barth-on-the-Baltic. Author Alan Newcomb, while on his seventh combat mission as a B-17 co-pilot, when in fall of 1944, he and his crew were forced to bail-out over Germany's Ruhr Valley after their plane was damaged by anti-aircraft flak and on fire. The book, largely written on prison camp toilet paper, is Newcomb's account of his time as a POW in Stalag Luft One, one of Germany's camps for captured Allied aviators. Daily life in the prison is described; especially notable is the high degree of organization of the prisoners and their activities (including digging escape tunnels) by the ranking officers. The prisoners were freed by advancing Russian forces in May 1945. This kindle edition includes the numerous photographs and line-drawings found in the original book.