The Summer of 1944, when Allied forces were sweeping towards Paris, was the beginning of the end for Hitler's Third Reich. However for a group of downed airmen evacuated from Fresnes Prison ahead of the advancing troops, the worst of the war was about to begin.
In total 168 Allied airmen (including several from Australia and New Zealand) were transported illegally to the infamous Buchenwald concentration camp where they experienced first-hand the black heart of Nazism. Miraculously they survived the order for their mass execution, but not before members of their group had died through starvation, brutality and neglect.
The author, Colin Burgess, has interviewed many of the survivors and carried out extensive research to create this gripping account of the full story - from tense days in the care of the French Underground through to the only recently resolved fight for proper compensation.
This book, above all, is a story of comradeship and the fighting spirit among ordinary people in the face of tyranny and the most acute evil.
