Escaping Hitler
Monty Halls chronicles the Freedom Trails across Europe, from Slovenia’s mass breakout to high-level routes in France and Italy.
- Author
- Monty Halls
- Publisher
- Pan Macmillan
- Price
- £14.99
- ISBN
- 9781509865994
- Published
- 2017
Escaping Hitler by Monty Halls
Monty Halls, presenter of Channel 4’s The Freedom Trails, distils his research from the four-part series into a book that explores Europe’s wartime escape routes. He and his team retraced high-mountain trails in Italy, France and Slovenia, interviewing surviving escapers, evaders and helpers while experiencing the terrain for themselves.
The Slovenian chapters describe the largest successful breakout from a POW camp during the war. British, Australian, New Zealand and reluctant French prisoners marched nearly 200 miles—double the “hundred miles as the crow flies” quoted by a sceptical British staff officer—before reaching an SOE airstrip where Special Duties Dakotas flew them to Italy.
Halls also covers the 2 SAS extraction route near Rossano in Italy, the Sulmona Triangle trails, and the high-level crossing from Saint-Girons into Spain, alongside numerous lower routes and the civilians who supported them. His enthusiasm, military background as a former Royal Marines Commando and family links to wartime evasion make him an engaging guide.
ISBN 9781509865994. Pan Macmillan. £14.99.