The Escape Factory: The Story of Mis-X [Paperback]

Lloyd R. Shoemaker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1992

A look at the masterminds behind some of World War II's greatest escapes discusses the master counterfeiters and engineers who supplied people in Europe and Asia with false documents, coded messages, hidden radios, compasses, and tools for escape. Reprint.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

MIS-X was a secret agency of the U.S. WW II War Department assigned to supply "escape aids" to American POWs in Europe. Working with a counterpart British agency, MIS-X also coordinated escape routes. Shoemaker describes how Allied prisoners of war made use of the items provided by the "escape factory," but the most absorbing sections of the book reveal how maps, compasses, radios and other items were hidden inside softballs, bats, ping pong paddles, playing cards, packs of cigarettes and other objects, and smuggled into the stalags. A corporal at the time, Shoemaker was involved in the operation. One of his tasks was to obtain assistance of manufacturing firms in inserting escape aids into their products. A highly entertaining story about a unique wartime operation. Photos.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

In MI-9: Escape and Evasion 1939-1945 ( LJ 11/1/80), M.R.D. Foot and J.M. Langley told how captured British servicemen were helped to resist and escape from POW camps. Shoemaker aptly describes America's counterpart effort, MIS-X, to supply prisoners with the means to escape from German POW camps and return home. Nearly all of MIS-X's materials and files were ordered destroyed at war's end. However, Shoemaker is able to tell much of the story from his own work with the group. MIS-X managed to get food, clothes, tools, radios, paper, and printing equipment to prisoners in Europe. Some flyers had learned a code to use in their letters home if captured and were able to provide useful information to U.S. officials. Well written and likely to be enjoyed by layperson or specialist.
- George H. Siehl, Library of Congress
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: St Martins Mass Market Paper (August 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312925727
• ISBN-13: 978-0312925727
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,077,921 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Useful but incomplete history of a Super Secret Activity, September 23, 1998

By 

El Cutachero (MD USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Escape Factory: The Story of Mis-X (Paperback)

MIS-X was the branch of U.S. Army G-2 which was in charge of furnishing escape aids and aiding the active escape measures of U.S. service personnel captured by the enemy in aWW II and kept in POW camps. The "ratlines" or escape networks were often run in cooperation with the British agency MIS-9 (cf M.R.D. Foote's book MIS-9). As in other cases the British were the "big brothers" who taught our clandestine operators. This was as much true of the brotherhood of the British SOE and the United State's OSS as the brotherhood of MIS-9 and MIS-X.
Why the operations of the E and E agencies required such highly kept secrecy, lasting in this country until the last ten years, was the necessity for the Germans not having even a hint of the special equipment smuggled in via Red Cross relief packages, all unknowingly by the latter of course, nor could the Germans be allowed to penetrate the "ratlines". Of course, the latter did happen, with unfortunate results to our side but they never knew of MIS-X.
After the war ended the headquarters of MIS-X which was colocated with the POW interrogation facilities at Fort Hunt, Va, was razed to the ground and plowed under and the heavy non-destructible equipment shipped to salvage yards and junked (presses, etc) and the soft goods such as escape checkerboards and radios concealed in baseballs were all to be destroyed.
Five years later when the Korean War broke out, the institutional memory was gone. A few heavily sanitized but still classified documents held in outside files ended up in the Suitland facility of the Federal Records Office but few knew what they meant and they did not talk. Compared to the Manhattan Project or the breaking of codes this project was a ten compared to their eight.
Although most of the WW II prisoners in contact with MIS E&E (both services) were air personnel the agency was part of the Army Chief of Staff's G-2, Intelligence, not Army Air Corps intelligence. Thus the individuals assigned to MIS were from many branches of the Army.
Shoemaker himself spent most of his service time at Fort Hunt in support and development. His book is mostly from memory with the aid of some of the highly chopped up documents. The story in this account is excellent for the war againt Germany. It is incomplete and inaccurate for the war against Japan.
First, the Japanese were not interested in taking care of prisoners except where they could be made to work, second, there was no place to go if you did escape, except in the Phillipines, and third, MIS-X did not operate in the SW Pacific or Central Pacific theatres and most of the CBI Theatre was either British responsibility or uncovered. In China the MIS-X operated independently. For an account by the man in charge of that unit see the recent work by Wichtrich, [u]MIS-X: Top Secret[/u]. (also on this site)
Lastly, the "jungle living" and other courses given to personnel shot down in the tropical areas were given by theatre personnel and were organizationally the responsibility of the Army Air Force's Air Surgeon General and the flight surgeons of the Naval Aviation forces. "Survival" in primitive areas was not an MIS responsibility.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What happened at Ft Hunt?, March 13, 2001

By 

BP in Ohio "BP" (Ohio, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Escape Factory: The Story of Mis-X (Paperback)

This book is a must read for those of us touched by Ft Hunt in some way. Also WW II and history buffs.

I grew up very close to Ft Hunt, and spent literally hundreds and hundreds of childhood hours there, riding bikes, exploring the fortifications, building dams on the little creeks, hiking the bridle trail (back when you could rent horses at the stables at the end of what's now Elkins Rd) and discovering all of its secret areas. Originally all of the buildings and fortifications in the area were secure, firmly boarded up with very stout 2x6's or 2x8's. But the "big" kids would find ways to break into these areas, and then we would all discover the remnants of what had been left behind when the military had given Ft Hunt to the National Park Service for recreational use.

The scenario was typically, the big kids would manage to pry a couple of the boards from a doorway. We "little" kids would come upon the opened doorway usually not more than about a day later, and of course be very excited to explore new areas...this was like Dungeons and Dragons but for real, where the (mostly) underground rooms were very intriguing. There were rumors of crates of rifles and even a secret tunnel under the Potomac to Ft Washington that we searched for relentlessly.

At the time Ft Hunt still had its original road system, and several large two story frame houses that had been officers' quarters. And there were all of the other buildings to house the facilities of a small military outpost. But no area was sacred from tenacious and unsupervised youths in search of adventure.

I brought home all kinds of things, like alarm buzzers, gas masks, and old electrical fixtures. I even brought home a baby skunk whose family I found living behind the concrete steps that led up to a one-story frame building we used to call the "schoolhouse". The skunk is another story though. At some point boards were removed from the schoolhouse doorway and very soon thereafter we little kids found the breach.

The schoolhouse contained a treasure unbelievable to a 10 year old's eyes. Looting was in season! There were all manner of research books (a complete set of Britannica from 1893), neat equipment, like a full Fairchild stereoscope and air photos, 35mm films, etc. Much to my parents chagrin, I began carting home as much as I could. My excuse for stealing? Well, all this stuff was abandoned, and if I didn't take it, the next guy would. If only I knew what the real treasure was at the time! This was definitely some the stuff used in the MIS-X operation.

After the schoolhouse door was breached, it couldn't have been more than a couple of days, a bulldozer came, pushed the schoolhouse into a pile, and it was torched. (This happened in about 1960, which disputes the claims that all "evidence" was destroyed within the decade of the 1940's.) In all of our time having our great adventures, we had never seen any action taken over anything, but the schoolhouse was different. It happened fast. I can remember, because I wanted to retrieve some more loot, but we got to watch the bulldozer instead. And The Escape Factory explains why. It also explains why, when I was a child, I would hear stories about German soldiers who had been brought to Ft Hunt for interrogation. Apparently more than one had escaped and showed up wandering the area, looking for food. Reportedly one was employed at a nearby farm for several months.

For years I wondered about many of the things I had run across at Ft Hunt. Now the story has been told.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A first American view, May 4, 2000

By 

Richard J. Kessler (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Escape Factory: The Story of Mis-X, the Super-Secret U.S. Agency Behind World War II's Greatest Escapes (Hardcover)

One of the first American views of the MIS-X program. Previously the British have written about their experiences from the MI-9 and MI-19 perspective. Much of the work of this unit has been still kept classified. There was some unit activity in Southeast Asia and elsewhere in Japanese controlled POW camps. My grandfather was one of the unit's commanders and later CO of Fort Hunt at the end of the war.