The Great Escape
Paul Brickhill
 The book covers the planning, execution and aftermath of what became known as The Great Escape. Other escape attempts (such as the Wooden Horse) are mentioned as well as the postwar hunt for the Gestapo agents who murdered fifty of the escapees on Hitler's direct order. Much of the book is focused on Royal Air Force Squadron Leader Roger Bushell, also known as "Big X", including his capture, early escape attempts, and planning of the escape. All the major participants and their exploits are described by Brickhill. Among these are Tim Walenn, the principal forger, who 'gave his factory the code name of "Dean and Dawson", after a British travel agency'; Al Hake, the compass maker; Des Plunkett, the ingenious chief map tracer, who made a mimeograph for reproducing maps; and Tommy Guest, who ran a team of tailors. Major John Dodge, who was related to Winston Churchill, was one of the escapees. The German officers and guards (called 'goons' by the prisoners) included teams of 'ferrets' who crawled about under the huts looking for signs of tunnels. They were carefully watched by teams of POW 'stooges', one of whom was Paul Brickhill, 'boss of a gang of "stooges" guarding the forgers'. In the end, seventy-six men escaped. Seventy-three were recaptured and fifty of those were shot by the Gestapo. Four of the remaining twenty-three later tunnelled out of Sachsenhausen, but were recaptured and chained to the floor of their cells. One of them, Major John Dodge, was released to secure a cease-fire. The book is dedicated "to the fifty". In the aftermath of the escape, according to Brickhill, 5,000,000 Germans spent time looking for the prisoners, many of them full time for weeks.