 | |
| Author | Mark Felton |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | Military history |
| Published | 2014 |
| Publisher | Icon Books (UK) |
| Publication place | England |
| 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. ... 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 Kim Kovacs from BookBrowse called the book "fascinating and meticulously researched" but noted that "Felton soft-peddles the adversity and privation, putting them well in the background and choosing to emphasize the action-adventure aspect of the planning and execution of the escape" and that she "felt like the author took liberties in creating conversational scenes, which detracted from the book's overall impact as a work of nonfiction." [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 epic historical war adventure film starring Steve McQueen, James Garner and Richard Attenborough and featuring James Donald, Charles Bronson, Donald Pleasence, James Coburn, Hannes Messemer, David McCallum, Gordon Jackson, John Leyton and Angus Lennie. It was filmed in Panavision, and its musical score was composed by Elmer Bernstein. Adapted from Paul Brickhill's 1950 non-fiction book of the same name, the film depicts a heavily fictionalized version of the mass escape by British Commonwealth prisoners of war from German POW camp Stalag Luft III in World War II. The film made numerous compromises for its commercial appeal, including its portrayal of American involvement in the escape.
A prisoner-of-war camp is a site for the containment of enemy fighters captured as prisoners of war by a belligerent power in time of war.
The Great Escape II: The Untold Story is a 1988 American made-for-television action-adventure drama film and a sequel to The Great Escape (1963). It stars Christopher Reeve, Judd Hirsch, Anthony Denison, Ian McShane, Charles Haid and Donald Pleasence in a supporting role. The second episode was directed by Jud Taylor. The Great Escape II premiered as a two-part miniseries on NBC on November 6 and 7, 1988, with each episode running two hours, including commercials.
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.
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.
Squadron Leader Roger Joyce Bushell was a South African aviator in the British Royal Air Force. He masterminded the famous "Great Escape" from Stalag Luft III in March 1944, but was one of the 50 escapees to be recaptured and subsequently shot and murdered by the Nazi German Gestapo secret police.
Oflag VI-B was a World War II German prisoner-of-war camp for officers (Offizierlager), 1 km (0.6 mi) southwest of the village of Dössel in Germany. It held French, British, Polish and other Allied officers.
Harry Melville Arbuthnot Day, was a Royal Marine and later a Royal Air Force pilot during the Second World War. As a prisoner of war, he was senior British officer in a number of camps and a noted escapee.
The Great Escape is a 1950 book by Australian writer Paul Brickhill (1916–1991), that provides an insider's account of the March 1944 mass escape from the Nazi German Luftwaffe prisoner of war camp Stalag Luft III for British and Commonwealth enemy airmen. As a prisoner in the camp himself, he participated in the escape plan but was barred from the actual escape attempt 'along with three or four others on grounds of suffering from claustrophobia'. The introduction to the book is written by George Harsh, an American P.O.W. at camp Stalag Luft III. This 1950 book along with other previously published material 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 30 nonfiction books, including the #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 more than a dozen languages, including French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Danish, Dutch, Chinese, Japanese, Hungarian and Czech. Henderson won the Tenth Annual Gilder Lehrman Military History Prize and a $50,000 award bestowed in recognition of "the best English language book published in 2022 in the field of American military history" for Bridge to the Sun: The Secret Role of the Japanese Americans Who Fought in the Pacific in World War II (Knopf). 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.
Dulag Luft were German Prisoner of War (POW) transit camps for captured airmen from any of the allied air forces during World War II. Their main purpose was to act as collection and interrogation centres for newly captured aircrew, before they were transferred in batches to the permanent camps.
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, surviving the famous The Great Escape in March 1944.
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 an English author, historian and YouTuber. Felton has written over a dozen non-fiction books. He runs several channels on YouTube covering different historical subjects of the 20th and 21st century, mainly related to World War I, World War II, and the Cold War. Felton has been a lecturer at the University of Essex and at various universities in China. He has also been featured on television as a military history expert. In 2014, he published Zero Night, a book about the 1942 mass allied escape from the German prisoner-of-war camp Oflag VI-B.