 | |
| Author | Mark Felton |
|---|---|
| Country | England |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Military history |
| Published | 2014 |
| Publisher | Icon Books (UK) |
| Media type | Print (hardback) |
| Pages | 320 |
| ISBN | 9781848317925 |
| OCLC | 906817098 |
Zero Night: The Untold Story of the Second World War's Most Daring Great Escape is a 2014 book by Mark Felton. It is about the 1942 mass allied escape from the German prisoner-of-war camp Oflag VI-B.
Zero Night has generally been well received. The Wall Street Journal wrote
"From the book’s subtitle (“The Untold Story of World War II’s Greatest Escape”) through its text, “Zero Night” invites comparison with Paul Brickhill’s “The Great Escape” (1950), which recounts a later Allied breakout. The latter is a better book, more polished, the prisoners—and even the Germans—depicted more three-dimensionally. (It’s relevant to note that Brickhill was a POW in the camp from which his subjects escaped.) Moreover, I couldn’t help wondering if Mr. Felton overidealizes the officer POWs in “Zero Night.” .. But escape narratives are almost always foolproof—i.e., suspenseful—and the events chronicled in “Zero Night,” diligently assembled by Mr. Felton, are engrossing enough to keep readers reading through to the end."
and concluded "Films like “The Great Escape” and “Von Ryan’s Express” are fun escapist (no pun intended) fare. But a book like “Zero Night” reminds us that the real Allied escapees were often far more enthralling and admirable than those movies’ characters could ever be." [1] Gulf News calls it "nothing short of a thriller, where the plot is laid out, preparation progresses stage-by-stage and finally brought to fruition." [2] while News Weekly wrote "Zero Night is a fascinating recount of this lesser known escape story, and would appeal to a wide range of readers." [3] Kirkus Reviews in a star review called it "a page-turner" and "exciting" [4] and BookBrowse wrote
"Fantastically intimate and told with a novelist's eye for drama and detail, this rip-roaring adventure is all the more thrilling because it really happened." [5]
A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610.
The Great Escape is a 1963 American war film, with elements of adventure and suspense, starring Steve McQueen, James Garner and Richard Attenborough and featuring James Donald, Charles Bronson, Donald Pleasence, James Coburn, Hannes Messemer, David McCallum, Karl-Otto Alberty, Gordon Jackson, John Leyton and Angus Lennie. It was filmed in Panavision.
Stalag Luft III was a Luftwaffe-run prisoner-of-war (POW) camp during the Second World War, which held captured Western Allied air force personnel.
Ghost Soldiers: The Epic Account of World War II's Greatest Rescue Mission is a non-fiction book written by Hampton Sides. It is about the World War II Allied prison camp raid at Cabanatuan in the Philippines.
Neal Shusterman is an American writer of young-adult fiction. He won the 2015 National Book Award for Young People's Literature for his book Challenger Deep and his novel, Scythe, was a 2017 Michael L. Printz Honor book.
Paul Chester Jerome Brickhill was an Australian fighter pilot, prisoner of war, and author who wrote The Great Escape, The Dam Busters, and Reach for the Sky.
Oflag VI-B was a World War II German prisoner-of-war camp for officers (Offizerlager), 1 km (0.6 mi) southwest of the village of Dössel in Germany.
The Great Escape is a 1950 book by Australian writer Paul Brickhill that provides an insider's account of the 1944 mass escape from the German prisoner of war camp Stalag Luft III for British and Commonwealth airmen. As a prisoner in the camp, he participated in the escape plan but was debarred from the actual escape 'along with three or four others on grounds of claustrophobia'. The introduction to the book is written by George Harsh, an American POW at Stalag Luft III. This book was made into the 1963 film The Great Escape.
Bertram Arthur "Jimmy" James, MC, RAF was a British survivor of The Great Escape. He was an officer of the Royal Air Force, ultimately reaching the rank of Squadron Leader.
Stalag Luft I was a German World War II prisoner-of-war (POW) camp near Barth, Western Pomerania, Germany, for captured Allied airmen. The presence of the prison camp is said to have shielded the town of Barth from Allied bombing. About 9,000 airmen – 7,588 American and 1,351 British and Canadian – were imprisoned there when it was liberated on the night of 30 April 1945 by Soviet troops.
Bruce Henderson is an American journalist and author of more than 20 nonfiction books, including a #1 New York Times bestseller, And the Sea Will Tell. His most recent New York Times bestseller is Sons and Soldiers: The Untold Story of the Jews Who Escaped the Nazis and Returned with the U.S. Army to Fight Hitler. Henderson's books have been translated into French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Danish, Dutch, Chinese, Japanese, Hungarian and Czech. A member of the Authors Guild, Henderson has taught reporting and writing courses at USC School of Journalism and Stanford University.
Phillip John Lamason, was a pilot in the Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) during the Second World War, who rose to prominence as the senior officer in charge of 168 Allied airmen taken to Buchenwald concentration camp, Germany, in August 1944. Raised in Napier, he joined the RNZAF in September 1940, and by April 1942 was a pilot officer serving with the Royal Air Force in Europe. On 8 June 1944, Lamason was in command of a Lancaster heavy bomber that was shot down during a raid on railway marshalling yards near Paris. Bailing out, he was picked up by members of the French Resistance and hidden at various locations for seven weeks. While attempting to reach Spain along the Comet line, Lamason was betrayed by a double agent within the Resistance and seized by the Gestapo.
Major John Bigelow Dodge also known as "the Artful Dodger" was an American-born British Army officer who fought in both world wars and became a notable prisoner of war during the Second World War and survived The Great Escape.
Escape From Davao: The Forgotten Story of the Most Daring Prison Break of the Pacific War, is a non-fiction, military history book written by John D. Lukacs. The book is the story of the only large-scale group of American prisoners of war to escape from a Japanese prison camp in the Pacific Theater during World War II. The ten escaped POWs were the first to break the news of the infamous Bataan Death March and other atrocities committed by the Japanese to the world.
Hero Found: The Greatest POW Escape of the Vietnam War is a 2010 non-fiction book by author Bruce Henderson. Hero Found is a biography of Vietnam War hero Dieter Dengler, a German-born United States Navy naval aviator who endured six months of imprisonment and torture before being rescued. Dengler survived 23 days in the jungle after escaping from a Pathet Lao prison camp.
Mark Felton is a British historian of the Second World War and author of more than 20 books.
The Nightingale is a historical fiction novel by American author Kristin Hannah published by St. Martin's Press in 2015. The book tells the story of two sisters in France during World War II and their struggle to survive and resist the German occupation of France. The book was inspired by the story of a Belgian woman, Andrée de Jongh, who helped downed Allied pilots escape Nazi territory.
Boy Erased: A Memoir is a 2016 memoir by Garrard Conley recounting his childhood in a fundamentalist Arkansas family that enrolled him in conversion therapy. According to The Week, it aims to bridge the cultural divide—"one that makes gay conversion therapy seem a natural choice in some places and unfathomable in others". It was adapted into the 2018 film Boy Erased.
Blizzard! The Storm That Changed America is a 2000 Children's history book by Jim Murphy. It is about the Blizzard of 1888 that hit the north-east of North America, and concentrates on New York City.
Remembered Prisoners of a Forgotten War: An Oral History of Korean War POWs is a 2002 military history book by Lewis H. Carlson. Using first-hand testimonies by repatriated prisoners of war of their experiences in captivity in Korea, the book demystifies the general perception in the United States that Korean War POWs had been "brainwashed" by their captors, and had betrayed their country.