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First edition. Thin quarto. Blue cloth decorated in gold, silver, black, and red. Barbed-wire patterned endpapers. Penciled owner name and address, front hinge neatly restored, extremities a bit bumped and rubbed, a little spotting, a well-worn, not quite very good copy. This book reprints portions of the prisoner of war camp's daily inmate publication, as well as additional historical information and pictures. It was from Stalag Luft III located near Sagan, Germany, about 100 miles southeast of Berlin (now in Poland), that a group of soldiers staged a massive escape in March, 1944. Of the 76 escapees, only three reached freedom; 50 were captured and executed by the Germans; 17 were returned to the camp; and six were sent to other prisons. The publication of the inmate newspaper began in May of 1944, commencing publication with a three-page memorial to the recently murdered prisoners, reproduced herein, along with other references and photographs related to the escape. The escape was the historical event that Paul Brickhill wrote about in his book *The Great Escape* in 1950, and was the inspiration for the 1963 film directed by John Sturges, scripted by James Clavell and W.R. Burnett, with a splendid cast that included Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, James Donald, Charles Bronson, Donald Pleasence, and James Coburn. This volume, prepared by a former inmate of the camp, is very uncommon, only the second one we ve seen. *OCLC* locates 10 copies (over five records), only three in the U.S. Seller Inventory # 450011
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