EPIC ESCAPES

The Second World War brought out the worst in humankind. It also brought to the fore its most heroic deeds. Nothing can equal the greatest escape of all; that of Clemens Forell a young German lieutenant captured by the Russians and sentenced to twenty-five years penal servitude in the dreaded Siberian lead mines. If you ever come across a book entitled 'As Far as my Feet will Carry Me' as narrated to J. M Bauer then pick it up and treasure it. (Don't even ask; I am NOT parting with my copy).

This is the true account of the soldier's fate after he was captured by partisans and with tens of thousands of other German infantrymen and officers disappeared into Stalin's Siberian hell, the Gulag Archipelago. After years of working underground in intolerable conditions from which men rarely survived he made the amazing decision to walk home.

Helped by a doctor he set out, ill-equipped and ill provisioned to trek across 8,000 miles of enemy occupied land to freedom.

During his incredible journey Forell suffered untold hardships. He learned how to live off the hostile Siberian wastes, he fell in with wandering tribes, at one stage he roamed the countryside with a desperate band of Russian criminals who tried to murder him. Stealing, enduring, he contrived to drift southward and westward until three years later he crossed a border to freedom.

The Daily Herald described it as "One of the most fantastic episodes of human courage an endurance ever written." The Observer: "The book stands out in the reader's memory with moving, tragically and sometimes frightening impressiveness."

The author says, "The whole story was so nightmarish, the incidents and situations he claimed to be true so incredible, that I kept on raising doubts, yielding only to the stubbornness with which he stuck to history or to corroboration from other sources. Time and again, when I did turn elsewhere for corroboration, his story was confirmed."

Such is the epic that be warned, you will not put it down the whole night through.

SPRINGING THE ITALIAN LEADER
Another escape recorded for posterity is that of the then Italian leader's rescue by German Commandos. This took place on 12th September 1944.

Benito Mussolini had fallen victim to an allied coup and had been placed under 'house arrest' in various Italian locations. Hitler's fear was that Italy's allied-backed stooge, Marshall Pietro Badoglio would make peace with the allies. This would likely involve his giving permission to the allies to invade Germany's back door via Italy. The vengeful Churchill was already gloating at Germany's impending misfortune.

To turn the tables on the allies the Fuhrer personally chose the battle-hardened SS-Sturmbannfuhrer Otto Skorzeny to carry out one of the most daring escapes in history.

German intelligence tracked down Mussolini to his latest prison, a ski resort on the high peak of Gran Sasso in the Appenine Mountains. His gaolers had chosen it as being virtually impregnable, the only access being by cable car.

Skorzeny carefully planned his intended raid. Aerial reconnaissance had identified a small grassy meadow, just yards from the hotel that might just offer a landing opportunity for expertly piloted gliders. The assault force was made up of a mix of carefully selected Waffen-SS commando specialists and Fallschirmjager (paratroopers).

A dozen light assault gliders soared high above the Appenine's snowy peaks whilst the rest of the paratroopers' battalion went by road to capture the Aquila airfield in the valley below the soaring mountain redoubt.

Eight of the gliders slithered to a stop and before the land borne paratroopers had arrived the guards had been bloodlessly overpowered. Within minutes the Italian leader was spirited away in a Fiesler Storch reconnaissance aircraft piloted by Skorzeny himself.

Churchill was foiled. Benito Mussolini was restored to power and Otto Skorzeny was awarded the Knight's Cross that was personally presented by the grateful German leader. Such was the valour shown that the epic then and now earned international acclaim. Perhaps it should be made into a movie. Might we suggest it be called, 'The Great Escape'?

THE SOUND BARRIER
Officially America's Chuck Yeager was the first pilot to reach Mach.1 otherwise known as the Sound Barrier (between 661mph and 742mph according to altitude). In fact it was first broken by Hans Guido Mutke, a Luftwaffe pilot over two years earlier. On April 9th 1945 Dr Mutke was flying his ME262A at 36,000 feet. Suddenly he was told of a fellow pilot who was under attack from an RAF Spitfire. He dived at the speedometer of his aircraft remained frozen in the red area (1,100km/h or 684mph). The aircraft entered the shaking phase that sets in at Mach.1 and the rivets started to fly out of the wings.

He managed to pull out at 26,000 feet but on the ground his aircraft looked as though it had been struck by a giant.

Further support comes from Kurt Doetsch, now 94 if he is still alive. This retired aeronautics professor was assigned in 1944 to find the reason for a series of mysterious and fatal ME262 crashes.

These aircraft were disintegrating in the air or out of control smashing into the ground. Professor Doetsch subjected the jets to a series of tests and found that the problems began at Mach.85. Some of the pilots had obviously broken the sound barrier and paid for it with their lives.

The Germans n fact made no end of astonishing scientific breakthroughs, in biochemical weaponry and non-military areas such as cancer research. Much of their groundbreaking work was centred on aerospace and missile technology. All of this was shipped out to the United States which, with the removal of the British Empire as a trade barrier, provided the rocket fuel for post war American advances and prosperity.

THE SKY'S THE LIMIT RAF
Air Vice Marshal 'Johnnie' Johnson who died in January 2001 was no doubt an exceptional gallant and skilful fighter pilot having been credited with shooting down 38 enemy fighters. But as the Sunday Telegraph's Kevin Myers pointed out, 'the simple infuriating truth is that he would never have made it to the Luftwaffe's list of top fighter aces'. The Luftwaffe's record show more than 100 of their pilots each shot down more than an incredible 100 allied aircraft.

The top scoring Luftwaffe pilot was Major Erich Hartmann who downed more than 352 allied aircraft that were attacking his country. His was more than the combined total of the RAF's eleven top fighter plots.

Between them the Luftwaffe's top 104 plots downed more than 15,000 allied aircraft between them. Nor was their prey relatively useless Soviet cannon fodder. Hans Joachim Marseille shot down 158 RAF fighters in just two years, a greater tally of enemy aircraft than achieved by the top four RAF aces combined. Of these four RAF aces only one in fact was British. One was Irish and the other two were South African.

GAGGED BECAUSE HE WITNESSED BRITAIN'S SHAME
One of the most daring British escapes was that of 19-year old soldier William Robert Alderson who had been captured at Dunkirk. He managed to escape twice but finally made good his escape, and incredibly walked from Czechoslovakia to Odessa, pulling a sledge over 1,000 miles. He was taken prisoner by the Russians but escaped yet again.

Back in Britain and 'The Land of Free Expression' after the war's end he was not allowed to publish his book, 'The Long Road Back' because it contained his eyewitness account of having witnessed the forced return of the Cossacks who had fled to the west. Disembarked from the first of many such ships at Odessa, he saw them lined up and shot on the quayside. An American company finally published the book in 1994.

The heroic soldier died unsung in 1996, but his family still lives in Padiham, Burnley in Lancashire, England.

WHOSE SACRIFICE WAS THE GREATEST?
The British Merchant Navy has never earned recognition for its sacrifice and valour during World War 11. Because many merchant seamen did not wear a uniform civilians thinking them draft dodgers often presented them with white feathers, the symbol of cowardice.

On the other hand Bomber Command's airmen, flying far above the appalling carnage they inflicted on a relatively defensive civilian population have constantly carped on about their perceived lack of recognition.

The airborne apocalypse has constantly whinged about their losses when set against the other services. They have been less forthcoming about their largely undefended and innocent victims. For the record Bomber Command lost 55,573 aircrew and 8,953 aircraft during Churchill's war.

The Merchant Navy lost more. The service suffered 61,631 casualties inclusive of foreigners serving under its command. These included seamen of defensively armed merchant ships. Altogether 5,150 merchant ships were lost, 2,828 of them to mainly German u-boats.

The sad irony is that the Merchant Navy's losses would have been considerably fewer if instead of indiscriminately bombing defenceless civilians the RAF had transferred its air resources to Coastal Command to defend British shipping.

"WE WOULD ALL BE SPEAKING GERMAN NOW?
"If it hadn't been for (fill it in yourself________________________________ we would all have been speaking German now."
The German armed forces occupied a number of European countries. None of the inhabitants were ever required to learn the German language. Life carried on much as it had before. In most areas one could easily forget that a war was going on.

Here in England we would have continued speaking English, which is in fact pidgin-European. There is no such thing as an English language. Its origins are a mix of Greek, Latin and German languages with a few contributions from countries occupied by England during its empire-building days. Remove from the English language words of Greek or Latin origin and conversation would be impossible with the little that remained.