Colditz Castle was Nazi Germany’s infamous ‘escape-proof’ wartime prison, where hundreds of the most determined and resourceful Allied prisoners were sent. Despite having more guards than inmates, Australian Lieutenant Jack Champ and other prisoners tirelessly carried out their campaign to escape from the massive floodlit stronghold, by any means necessary. In this riveting account – by turns humorous, heartfelt and tragic – historian Colin Burgess and Lieutenant Jack Champ, from the point of view of the prisoners themselves, tell the story of the twenty Australians who made this castle their ‘home’, and the plans they made that were so crazy that some even achieved the seemingly impossible – escape! ‘A stirring testimony of mateship . . . We are often on tenterhooks, always impressed by their determination, industry and courage’ Australian Book Review

Colditz Castle was Nazi Germany's infamous 'escape-proof' wartime prison, where hundreds of the most determined and resourceful Allied prisoners were sent. Despite having more guards than inmates, Australian Lieutenant Jack Champ and other prisoners tirelessly carried out their campaign to escape from the massive floodlit stronghold, by any means necessary. In this riveting account - by turns humorous, heartfelt and tragic - historian Colin Burgess and Lieutenant Jack Champ, from the point of view of the prisoners themselves, tell the story of the twenty Australians who made this castle their 'home', and the plans they made that were so crazy that some even achieved the seemingly impossible - escape! 'A stirring testimony of mateship . . . We are often on tenterhooks, always impressed by their determination, industry and courage' Australian Book Review

During WWlI, the Germans boasted that their prisoner-of-war camp, the famed Colditz Castle, was escape proof-but they were wrong. Jack Champ and other prisoners were among those who attempted escape from the massive stronghold -- some even succeeded. "The Diggers of Colditz" is the story of these men and how they kept their dreams of freedom alive under the tyranny of the Nazis.

Though only one among hundreds of prison camps in which British servicemen were held between 1939 and 1945, Colditz enjoys unparalleled name recognition both in Britain and in other parts of the English-speaking world. Made famous in print, on film, and through television, Colditz remains a potent symbol of key virtues - including ingenuity and perseverance against apparantly overwhelming odds - that form part of the popular mythology surrounding the British war effort in World War II. Colditz has played a major role in shaping perceptions of the POW experience in Nazi Germany, an experience in which escaping is assumed to be paramount and 'Outwitting the Hun' a universal sport. The story of Colditz has been told often and in a variety of forms but in this book MacKenzie chronicles the development of the Colditz myth and puts what happened inside the castle in the context of British and Commonwealth POW life in Germany as a whole. Being a captive of the Third Reich - from the moment of surrender down to the day of liberation and repatriation - was more complicated and a good deal tougher than the popular myth would suggest. The physical and mental demands of survival far outweighed escaping activity in order of importance in most camps almost all of the time, and even in Colditz the reality was in some respects very different from the almost Boy's Own caricature that developed during the post-war decades. In The Real Colditz MacKenzie seeks, for the first time, to place Colditz - both the camp and the legend - in a wider historical context.

Through first-hand accounts of hundreds of ordinary prisoners of war, Paul MacKenzie strips away the mythology and presents the real picture of what it was like to be captured and interrogated and to endure the physical and mental hardships of captivity. Colditz is placed in a wider historical context.

A thrilling, moment by moment account of an epic World War II escape and the real-life adventures that followed. On August 30, 1942 - 'Zero Night' - 40 Allied officers staged the most audacious mass escape of World War II. Months of meticulous planning and secret training hung in the balance during three minutes of mayhem as the officers boldly stormed the huge double fences at Oflag Prison. Employing wooden ladders and bridges previously disguised as bookshelves, the highly coordinated effort succeeded and set 36 men free into the German countryside. Later known as the 'Warburg Wire Job', fellow prisoner and fighter ace Douglas Bader once described the attempt as 'the most brilliant escape conception of this war'. The first author to tackle this remarkable story in detail, historian Mark Felton brilliantly evokes the suspense of the escape and the adventures of those escapees who managed to elude the Germans, as well as the courage of the civilians who risked their lives to help them in enemy territory. 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.

A truly comprehensive account of 617 Squadron, RAF, ​who carried out one of the most dangerous and audacious aerial bombing raids of World War II. It was the evening of 16 May 1943. Nineteen modified Lancaster bombers from 617 Squadron RAF, under the command of youthful Wing Commander Guy Gibson, roared into the night sky from their Lincolnshire base. They were on a top-secret Bomber Command mission, codenamed Operation Chastise, now regarded as one of the most dangerous and audacious bombing raids of World War II – an attack on the formidable, well-defended dams of Germany’s Ruhr Valley. Slung beneath the belly of each aircraft was one of the war’s greatest secrets – a bouncing bomb. Against the odds, and flying straight and level into the teeth of terrifying enemy fire, they succeeded in breaching the two principal dams. Many of the 133 airmen involved that fateful night hailed from Australia, and several would be counted among the 56 who would not return to base next morning. The Dams Raid led to the men of this gallant company – often referred to as a suicide squadron – taking on even more hazardous operations in the final two years of the war. Under valorous leadership, and now armed with massive Tallboy and Grand Slam ‘earthquake’ bombs, they obliterated vital Nazi installations, destroying such defiant targets as the heavily defended Kembs Barrage and the German battleship Tirpitz, often at a terrible cost in lives. First published in 2003, this deeply researched, revised and updated edition of Australia’s Dambusters offers a truly comprehensive account of the most famous bombing raid of the war through the words and stories of the courageous Australian airmen and others who flew on this and later perilous missions, remembered and forever immortalised as the Dambusters.