“I’m Out! Escape to The Frontier” with Peter Hart

We're starting the New Year with an old friend, Peter Hart, who's been a regular speaker at the Branch from its' earliest days, back at the old Town Hall venue.

This talk is based on Peter's book, written with Gary Bain, 'Beggar Me! I'm a Prisoner! British POWS in Germany, 1914-1918' and focusses on the attempts to escape from camps deep within Germany and the many trials and pitfalls they faced in trying to get out of Germany. Some escaped, far more were recaptured. Its a thrilling tale of daring do!

The blurb from the book-cover sets the scene:

Nobody really expected to be made a prisoner of war but once captured it was a cruel, hard world, especially if they weren’t officers. At the mercy of bullying captors, often existing on a minimal diet that left them suffering from malnutrition, forced to work long hours in appalling conditions, many were too damn exhausted to try and escape. But a few roused themselves and devoted countless hours to escape plans, some taking opportunistic advantage of any brief opening, others engaging in the hard graft of tunnelling. But escape was no guarantee of liberty; many were all too soon caught, to be ignominiously dragged back to the POW camps. For such men failure was only a spur to greater efforts as they try, try, tried again. This is a story of courage and endurance we  should not forget.