The Longest Tunnel: The True Story of World War II's Great Escape (Bluejacket Books) [Paperback]

Alan Burgess (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

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.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

YA-- The escape of 76 Allied POWs from Sagan, Stalag Luft III, on March 24, 1944 was accomplished by a 350-foot tunnel hand dug under the prison camp grounds. This dramatic narration of the frustrations, dangers, fears, and tensions is based on previously unavailable camp records and interviews with survivors. Fictionalized dialogue defines characters and intensity of activity. The POW's freedom was short-lived with Hitler ordering their recapture and execution. The postwar search for the Gestapo who carried out the fatal orders recounts the fate that met the international group of officers and crewmen. Paul Brickhill's Great Escape (Fawcett, 1986) also relates the tunnel escape efforts but is not as complete.
-Julia M. Losinski, formerly at Prince George's County Memorial Library System, Hyattsville, MD
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 289 pages
• Publisher: US Naval Institute Press (September 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591140978
• ISBN-13: 978-1591140979
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #929,289 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Is Prophetic in a Sense, March 22, 2006

By 

Jan Peczkis "Scholar and Thinker" (Chicago IL, USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Longest Tunnel: The True Story of World War Ii's Great Escape (Hardcover)

Burgess provides information that was unavailable to Paul Brickhill for his 1950 book on the Great Escape. Burgess provides fascinating photos from German sources, now also available online, of the goon towers of Stalag Luft III, Tom's trap, Harry from various angles, etc. Fascinating new details have also come to light. Consider, for instance, the depths of the tunnels. The POWs believed that placing the tunnels thirty feet down put them out of range of the microphone listening devices. It turns out that the devices still were able to pick up the sounds of the tunneling. The Germans thus knew that tunneling was going on, but were enraged at not being able to pinpoint the location of Tom for a long time and Harry up to the breakout of the 76. But the depth of the tunneling evidently made the signal diffuse enough to prevent the listeners from zeroing on the exact site of the tunnel.

Burgess describes the three Polish engineer-pilots who were responsible for the design of the traps for Tom, Dick, and Harry. Each trap had to be completely different from any other so that the Germans could not make a generalization for subsequent searches if they found one or two of them. The challenges were considerable. The initial trapmaking was a noisy operation, requiring cover noise to be made by other POWs. The trap had to be invisible to German eyes yet capable of being closed and sealed in a few tens of seconds. Harry's trap was actually the one underneath a stove. Tom's trap was found by the Germans apparently by accident. A goon reportedly dropped a pipe at or near the trap, causing the fast-drying concrete mask to chip and thus give away the trap. Burgess goes into quite a bit of detail about Dick's trap and its ingenious construction under a shower drain, and suggests that Dick's trap may yet be found by some archeologists. Years later, this is exactly what has happened. In this way, Burgess has been proved prophetic.

Burgess discusses in considerable detail the postwar search for the German criminals responsible for the murder of 50 of the 73 recaptured airmen. It is amazing how quickly suspected individuals informed on their colleagues once questioned. They kept justifying their action by referring to the Allied airmen as "terror-fliers". Burgess should have provided the proper context for this German propaganda. In fact, the very first "terror-fliers" were none other than the Germans themselves. Within hours of the beginning of World War II (the German-Soviet conquest of Poland in September-October 1939), German bombers were killing tens of thousands of Polish civilians (including those in marked hospitals) through indiscriminate bombing of unmistakable civilian targets!

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The true story behind the movie "The Great escape", November 12, 2004

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Longest Tunnel: The True Story of World War II's Great Escape (Bluejacket Books) (Paperback)

The Longest Tunnel: The True Story Of World War II's Great Escape is an amazing historical chronicle of the true story behind the popular and classic World War II movie "The Great Escape", which is in turn based on the book "The Great Escape" by Paul Brickhill. Author Alan Burgess, a RAF flyer in WW II, draws upon sources that even Brickhill did not have access to, explaining how seventy-six allied POW's traveled through a 350-foot tunnel to make their mark on history. Exciting, highly readable, dramatic, and narrated in express detail.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Another look at the Great Escape, August 25, 1995

By A Customer

This review is from: The Longest Tunnel: True Story of World War Ii's Great Escape (G K Hall Large Print Book Series) (Hardcover)

Mr. Burgess takes us on another look at 'The Great Escape'.You may have seen the movie, you might have read PaulBrickhill's original work on the subject, but Mr. Burgess digs deep into the story for us readers. Mr. Brickhills original work suffered a bit in my opinion from the time it was publised (early 50's). People didn't want to know the full horror of the great escape. Mr. Burgess tracks down every detail to tell this story, and there is no softening of the impact nor is there any detail missing. An excellent work.