The 21 Escapes of Lt Alastair Cram
The 21 Escapes of Lt Alastair Cram

Author: David M. Guss

Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Published: 2018-05-31

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 150982958X

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A genuinely new Second World War story, The 21 Escapes of Lt Alastair Cram by David M. Guss is a riveting account of the wartime exploits of the Scotsman. It is a tale of courage in the face of extraordinary odds and a testament to one man's dogged determination never to give up. ‘The greatest serial escaper of the Second World War’ – The Times 'Endlessly fascinating. Cram's story sizzles with adventure' – Giles Milton, Sunday Times In November 1941 Lt Alastair Cram was taken prisoner in North Africa as a devastating tank battle unfolded as Operation Crusader struggled to relieve Tobruk. His capture began a four year-long odyssey as he passed through twelve different POW camps, three Gestapo prisons and one asylum. Determined to regain his freedom, he became a serial escapee fleeing his captors no fewer than twenty-one times. The most dramatic of these attempts was from Gavi, the ‘Italian Colditz’. This maximum-security prison built inside a thousand year old stone fortress was for the pericolosi, those classified as the ‘most dangerous’ prisoners due to their unrelenting desire to escape. It was here that Alastair met David Stirling, the legendary founder of the SAS, and cooked up the plan for the ‘Cistern Tunnel’, one of the most audacious but little-known mass escape attempts of the entire war. ______________ 'Fascinating' – Daily Express 'An enthralling portrait of true courage' Sunday Express S Magazine

The 21 Escapes of Lt Alastair Cram
The 21 Escapes of Lt Alastair Cram

Author: David M. Guss

Publisher: Pan

Published: 2019-06-11

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781509829590

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A genuinely new World War II story, this is a riveting account of the wartime exploits of Alastair Cram. Cram was taken prisoner in North Africa in November 1941, which began a long odyssey through 12 different POW camps, three Gestapo prisons and one asylum. He fled his captors no fewer than 21 times, including his final successful escape from a POW column in April 1945. Perhaps the most dramatic of his attempts was from Gavi, the "Italian Colditz." Gavi was a maximum-security prison near Genoa for the pericolosi, the "most dangerous" inmates because of their perpetual hunger to escape. It was here that Alastair met David Stirling, the legendary founder of the SAS, and cooked up the plan for what would become the "Cistern Tunnel" escape, one of the most audacious but hitherto little-known mass escape attempts of the entire war.

The Festive State
The Festive State

Author: David M. Guss

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2001-01-02

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 9780520924864

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If, as David Guss argues, culture is a contested terrain with constantly changing contours, then festivals are its battlegrounds, where people come to fight and dispute in large acts of public display. Festive behavior, long seen by anthropologists and folklorists as the "uniform expression of a collective consciousness, is contentious and often subversive," and The Festive State is an eye-opening guide to its workings. Guss investigates "the ideology of tradition," combining four case studies in a radical multisite ethnography to demonstrate how in each instance concepts of race, ethnicity, history, gender, and nationhood are challenged and redefined. In a narrative as colorful as the events themselves, Guss presents the Afro-Venezuelan celebration of San Juan, the "neo-Indian" Day of the Monkey, the mestizo ritual of Tamunangue, and the cultural policies and products of a British multinational tobacco corporation. All these illustrate the remarkable fluidity of festive behavior as well as its importance in articulating different cultural interests.

Asperger's Children: The Origins of Autism in Nazi Vienna
Asperger's Children: The Origins of Autism in Nazi Vienna

Author: Edith Sheffer

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2018-05-01

Total Pages: 283

ISBN-13: 0393609650

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“An impassioned indictment, one that glows with the heat of a prosecution motivated by an ethical imperative.” —Lisa Appignanesi, New York Review of Books In the first comprehensive history of the links between autism and Nazism, prize-winning historian Edith Sheffer uncovers how a diagnosis common today emerged from the atrocities of the Third Reich. As the Nazi regime slaughtered millions across Europe during World War Two, it sorted people according to race, religion, behavior, and physical condition. Nazi psychiatrists targeted children with different kinds of minds—especially those thought to lack social skills—claiming the Reich had no place for them. Hans Asperger and his colleagues endeavored to mold certain “autistic” children into productive citizens, while transferring others to Spiegelgrund, one of the Reich’s deadliest child killing centers. In this unflinching history, Sheffer exposes Asperger’s complicity in the murderous policies of the Third Reich.

Remarkable Journeys of the Second World War
Remarkable Journeys of the Second World War

Author: Victoria Panton Bacon

Publisher: The History Press

Published: 2020-09-01

Total Pages: 259

ISBN-13: 0750995904

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Those who lived through the Second World War have many stories of bravery, sadness, horror, doubt and longing. Inspired by conversations with veterans following the publication of her grandfather's wartime memoir, Victoria Panton Bacon has gathered a moving collection of their experiences. Their recollections tell of a different time and reveal the courage, actions and sentiments of those whose wartime experiences changed the course of history; stories of ordinary people who lived under the long shadows cast by the war and whose young lives were changed irrevocably. Though many tales are sad, describing being sent into war and the loss of friends and family, there are also stories of joy and love found in the darkest of times. For them, war, the ultimate leveller, threw them into remarkable times, whether they were a merchant seaman, army officer, pilot, young Jewish girl, code breaker or Home Guard recruit. From one extraordinary story to the next, Remarkable Journeys of the Second World War immerses the reader in the lives of real people who lived through conflict.

Fighting the People's War
Fighting the People's War

Author: Jonathan Fennell

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019-01-24

Total Pages: 967

ISBN-13: 1107030951

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Jonathan Fennell captures for the first time the true wartime experience of the ordinary soldiers from across the empire who made up the British and Commonwealth armies. He analyses why the great battles were won and lost and how the men that fought went on to change the world.

A Teenagers War
A Teenagers War

Author: James Brearley

Publisher: Mereo Books, mereobook, mereobooks

Published: 2014-02-27

Total Pages: 255

ISBN-13: 1861511299

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From Huddersfield to war-torn Holland, this is the true story of one English boy serving with the Black Watch during World War II. When he was only seventeen, James Watson signed up to serve the nation in the fight against Nazi invasion. Knowing the legacy of their bravery and honour, he expressed a desire to serve in the Black Watch Highland Regiment, and it would only be a few months later when he began his training and the road to war. Written from the perspective of a close comrade, the true-story of James ?Jim? Watson?s wartime exploits follow him from his first day of training to the very last battle he would ever fight. Poignantly and emotionally-written, it is a story that conveys the day-to-day suffering of young soldiers as they fought for the liberation of Europe and for the safety of their friends and family back home. Alongside the stalwart men of the 5th Black Watch, James Watson?s actions from his role in the storming of the beaches on D-Day to being amongst the first to cross the border into Germany in 1945 are recollected in vivid detail. Friends dead and innocence shattered, the true cost of war on the young souls forced into violence is powerfully preserved in this account of James? war. However the question still remains as to whether he will make it home at all. Written by James Watson?s nephew, A Teenager?s War is an inspiring but down-to-earth record of the lives of young soldiers and the war that defined their generation.

Finding Our Voice
Finding Our Voice

Author: Neil Glover

Publisher: Saint Andrew Press

Published: 2024-04-30

Total Pages: 138

ISBN-13: 1800830521

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Beneath all the anxieties about church decline and strategies to reverse that, this book speaks to a problem that has not been addressed – why is it that mainstream churches, Anglican, Methodist, Baptist and Presbyterian have been particularly affected by the secular age? And how might they be renewed? It argues that these churches need to focus less on restructuring and closures and instead recover a sense of authenticity – in the gospel they believe, in their vision of human flourishing, their diversity, their passion for justice and their unique ability to connect with local communities. Too often mainline churches are perceived as worthy but also profoundly unexciting. This book explores the centuries-old roots of this perceived boredom, and how the church can more often become a place of inspiration and of encounter with God. “Finding Our Voice" calls on all kinds of resources that can help refresh the church’s self-expression - in engagement with the scriptures, with art, music and poetry, in searching for a better language that remains true to the church’s core identity and resonates with contemporary culture.

David Stirling
David Stirling

Author: Gavin Mortimer

Publisher: Constable

Published: 2022-05-26

Total Pages: 485

ISBN-13: 1472134567

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Aristocrat, gambler, innovator and special forces legend, the life of David Stirling should need no retelling. His formation of the Special Air Service in the summer of 1941 led to a new form of warfare and Stirling is remembered as the father of special forces soldiering. But was he really a military genius or in fact a shameless self-publicist who manipulated people, and the truth, for this own ends? In this gripping and controversial biography Gavin Mortimer analyses Stirling's complex character: the childhood speech impediment that shaped his formative years, the pressure from his overbearing mother, his fraught relationship with his brother, Bill, and the jealousy and inferiority he felt in the presence of his SAS second-in-command, the cold-blooded killer Paddy Mayne. Stirling lived until old age, receiving a knighthood and plaudits from military forces around the world before his death in 1990. Yet as Mortimer dazzlingly shows, while Stirling was instrumental in selling the SAS to Churchill and senior officers, it was Mayne who really carried the regiment in the early days. Stirling was at best an incompetent soldier and at worst a foolhardy one, who jeopardised his men's live with careless talk and hare-brained missions. Drawing on interviews with SAS veterans who fought with Stirling and men who worked with him on his post-war projects, and examining recently declassified governments files about Stirling's involvement in Aden, Libya and GB75, Mortimer's riveting biography is incisive, bold, honest and written with his customary narrative panache. Impeccably researched and with the courage to challenge the mythical SAS 'brand', Mortimer brings to bear his unparalleled expertise as WW2's premier special forces historian to dig beneath the legend and reveal the real David Stirling, a man who dared and deceived.

Cinema and Radio in Britain and America, 1920-60
Cinema and Radio in Britain and America, 1920-60

Author: Jeffrey Richards

Publisher: Studies in Popular Culture

Published: 2016-02

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 9781784991104

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The book charts the evolving relationship between cinema and radio during the heyday of the two media and compares and contrasts their development in Britain and America