You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
Independent publisher Fighting High has acquired Great War to Great Escape, the story of one of the survivors of the Second World War POW breakout immortalised in "The Great Escape".
Managing director Steve Darlow commissioned the title from author Laurence Green, who is the grandson of escapee Bernard Green, acquiring world rights.
Flight Lieutenant Green MC was one of 76 prisoners of war who tunnelled out of Stalag Luft III; he was recaptured, and survived the war. Fifty others were killed on the direct orders of Hitler.
The book draws on family archives and letters, telling of Green's experiences at Ypres and the Somme during the First World War, and then of his years of captivity during virtually all of the Second World War.
Darlow said: "I read the draft manuscript and what I liked about it was that it very much got into the mind of Bernard Green. It deals quite a bit with the psychology of the First World War and how that affected him."
The title will be published on 24th March to coincide with the anniversary of the escape, which took place on the night of the 24th/25th March 1944.
Fighting High, a military aviation specialist, published its first title in autumn of 2009, and has four titles already scheduled for 2011.