Recommended by Dunsborough Book Chat Club
The story of a RAF airman, shot down over Europe, and escaping over the Pyrenees is not a novelty. This book is written by the great-grandson of Frank Griffiths, when in his early twenties, and after he had re-traced, as accurately as he could, the escape route his great-grandfather travelled in 1943.
The charm lies in the author’s youth and his commitment to recording the feats of strength and courage by individuals and countries to defeat Nazi Germany. The book is easily read, and includes some of the authors’ own adventures en route, but for me the outstanding and most interesting parts were the stories of the French citizenry, mostly women and young boys, who risked they own lives and those of their families to smuggle the airmen out of France. Their courage is unbelievable. Adam Hart brought them, the members of the underground Maquis, to life. They were more real than his great-grandfather, Frank Griffiths, possibly because Adam was able to meet many of them on his odyssey, and Frank had died 4 years before he was born.
4/5 Stars