cover image The Longest Tunnel: The True Story of World War II's Great Escape Tunnel

The Longest Tunnel: The True Story of World War II's Great Escape Tunnel

Alan Burgess. George Weidenfeld & Nicholson, $19.95 (289pp) ISBN 978-1-55584-033-4

Readers of Paul Brickhill's The Great Escape will recall the story of the tunnel breakout of 76 Allied airmen from a German POW camp as one of the war's most suspenseful and dramatic episodes. With the help of interviews and newly uncovered German documents, Burgess here fills in the details of the planning and construction of the tunnel, the elaborate preparations for life on the run, the efforts of the camp administration to locate the tunnel and the escape itself on the night of March 23, 1944. He covers the fate of individual escapees and the story of how a small group of men from the RAF Special Investigation Branch tracked down former Gestapo personnel after the war and brought them to justice for the murder of the 50 airmen who were recaptured. (Only three escapees achieved the ``home run.'') Burgess, former R.A.F. flyer and co-author with David Berman of My Story , has shaped an enthralling narrative that is also a tribute to human courage and resourcefulness. Photos. (Feb.)