Moonless Night -OS [Paperback]

Jimmy James (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2003

From the moment he was shot down to the final whistle, Jimmy James' one aim as a POW of the Germans was to escape.

The movie, The Great Escape, describes his experiences and those of his fellow prisoners in the most gripping and thrilling manner. The author made more than 12 escape attempts including his participation in The Great Escape, where 50 of the 76 escapees were executed in cold blood on Hitler's orders. On recapture, James was sent to the infamous Sachsen-hausen concentration camp where, undeterred, he tunneled out. That was not the end of his remarkable story.

Moonless Night has strong claim to be the finest escape story of the Second World War.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Pen & Sword Books (February 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 085052900X
• ISBN-13: 978-0850529005
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,401,167 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best WW2 Escape Book I've Read, July 5, 2004

By 

Marc H. Stevens "Carrera Marc" (Toronto, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Moonless Night -OS (Paperback)

The review title just about says it all. Not only did Jimmy James spend almost 5 years as a POW, but he escaped countless times. After being one of the "lucky" 23 recaptured from The Great Escape not to be murdered by the Nazis, he was sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, and he ESCAPED from there!!!

An amazing true story!

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Great Escape in Broader Context, May 30, 2006

By 

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

This review is from: Moonless Night -OS (Paperback)

The author, Jimmy James, provides many lucid details dealing with his experiences before, during, and after the Great Escape. James discusses his experiences at Barth, Stalag Luft III, Szubin, and Sachsenhausen. (He later visited the site of Stalag Luft III in 2004, 60 years after the Great Escape. At that time, he also observed the forensic dig that amazingly unearthed remnants of the tunnel Dick). James provides tables at the end of the book which include various statistics on the three tunnels dug at the time of the Great Escape (tons of sand removed per tunnel and per interval of time, numbers of pieces of lumber used for shoring per tunnel, etc.).

James provides a summary of events that occurred on the night of the Great Escape itself. After he left tunnel Harry during the night of the Great Escape, James trekked to Tschiebsdorf (now Trzebow), took a train to Boberrohrsdorf (or Bober-Rohrsdorf; now Siedlecin), and then was caught just north of the German-Czech border. Most of his comrades were murdered by the Germans, in open violation of the Geneva Convention.

James' description of what went on in Sachsenhausen concentration camp is graphic. Unlike modern treatments that tend to emphasize the experiences of Jews, James provides a balanced account of the many different victims of the Germans and the unspeakable cruelties that they were forced to endure. James makes it clear that Poles and other Slavs, religious and political dissidents, etc., were treated every bit as bad as the Jews. Inmates of western European nationalities, by contrast, were treated considerably better. James mentions numerous details seldom encountered in English-language publications. These include the dressing up of some of the corpses of Sachsenhausen inmates in Polish army uniforms for a faked Polish provocatory "attack" on German territory (along the German-Polish border) used to justify the ensuing German conquest of Poland in September 1939, the murder of 17,000 Polish POWs at Sachsenhausen in March 1940, and the suicide of inmate Jakob Djugashvili (son of Joseph Stalin) following news of the Katyn massacre of Polish POWs (correctly blamed on the Soviets).