Australia's Classic POW Story
Colditz: Germany's escape-proof castle prison where hundreds of the most determined and resourceful prisoners of World War II tirelessly carried out an unending campaign to achieve the seemingly impossible - freedom!
On 23 June 1943, Lieutenant Jack Champ of the 2/6 AIF was marched into the German prisoner-of-war camp designated Oflag IVC, these days better known as Colditz Castle. By the end of the war twenty Australians had spent time in Colditz, and this book looks at life in the ancient castle prison specifically from their point of view.
Colditz was a very special camp at which the guards outnumbered the prisoners, and the castle was floodlit at night. Initially the Germans boasted that Colditz Castle was escape-proof, but they were wrong. By the end of the war there had been more escapes from Colditz than from any other prison of comparable size during both world wars.
Jack Champ was a reluctant prisoner who took part in two of the most spectacular mass escapes of the war. This book describes in vivid detail how these indomitable and resourceful Australian servicemen tried, and at times succeeded, in turning dreams of escape into reality.
