Boldness Be My Friend

Description

'Escape... escape... escape... by God!' was his constant exhortation. 'Never mind hunger pains, discomfort, or any other agony. Let escape become your passion, your one and only obsession until you finally reach home.' Shot down over Berlin in 1941, Richard Pape's saga of captivity is a story of courage unmatched in the annals of escape. Four escapes took him across the breadth of German-occupied Europe; to Poland and Czechoslovakia; to Austria and Hungary. Aggressive and impetuous, his adventures sweep the reader along on a torrent of excitement.

Born in 1916, Richard Pape was an irrepressible red-haired Yorkshireman, who joined 609 Squadron as an Auxiliary Airman before the war. He later transferred to Bomber Command, got shot down, evaded, was captured, escaped, got tortured, escaped, before being repatriated. He became a best-selling author and renowned adventurer after the war. He died in 1995.

'It's an extraordinary story of British pluck but also very moving. Pape survived torture by the Gestapo but many of those who helped him weren't so lucky' -- Mail on Sunday 20080615