Wooden Horse by Eric Williams

From the Publisher

They worked until they had dug a tunnel forty feet long. They grew skegs on their fingernails. As the tunnel grew longer the work became more difficult and the air more foul. They did not put air holes for the fear of the dogs.' Thus begins one of the most perilous and imaginative attempts at escape from a German prison camp.

Publishers Weekly

Williams, a Royal Air Force bomber captain, was shot down over Germany in 1942 and imprisoned in Stalag-Luft III. He escaped after 10 months and, accompanied by a fellow RAF officer, made his way back to England. He relates his story in three distinct phases: the construction of a tunnel (its entrance camouflaged by a wooden vaulting horse in the exercise yard) and hiding the large quantities of sand he dug; the escape; and the journey on foot and by train to the port of Stettin, where Williams and his fellow escapee stowed away aboard a Danish ship, the Norensen. The story of the flight across Germany is particularly tense, as Williams relates how their clothing and fabricated travel papers became shabbier and more conspicuous. This classic escape-and-evasion story, an exciting read, was published in England in 1949. Williams died in 1983. (Nov.)

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