Books - Review

The true story of the man who never was - a dead body washed up on the shores of Spain with secret plans in his pocket of the Allies forthcoming (fake) invasion of Sardinia, deflecting attention from the real invasion of Sicily. The most successful wartime deception ever attempted.

Very good.

The story of Colditz - German WWII fortress for Allied POWs. Many stories of escapes, both successful and not, but also lots of great historical detail on conditions, relations between the different nations, social hierarchies within the prisoners and plenty of info from a German prison officer point of view.

So this was really interesting, especially all the stuff about everyday life eg the chasm between officer and orderly - I didn't know Douglas Bader (for example) was quite so horrible to his batman. Pat Reid was the most prominent (British) escapee having written his well-known book, but he apparently only covered the adventures of the plucky officers, and skated over much of the reality.