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Title: Silent Heroes
Subtitle: Downed Airmen and the French Underground
Author: Sherri Greene Ottis
Narrator: Nate Daniels, Michele Spohn
Format: Unabridged
Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
Language: English
Release date: 03-03-17
Publisher: University Press Audiobooks
Genres: History, 20th Century
Publisher's Summary:
In the early years of World War II, it was an amazing feat for an Allied airman shot down over occupied Europe to make it back to England. By 1943, however, pilots and crewmembers, supplied with "escape kits", knew they had a 50 percent chance of evading capture and returning home. An estimated 12,000 French civilians helped make this possible. More than 5,000 airmen, many of them American, successfully traveled along escape lines organized much like those of the US Underground Railroad. If caught, they risked internment in a POW camp. But the French, Belgian, and Dutch civilians who aided them risked torture and even death. Sherri Ottis writes candidly about the pilots and crewmen who walked out of occupied Europe, as well as the British intelligence agency in charge of Escape and Evasion. But her main focus is on the helpers, those patriots who have been all but ignored in English-language books and journals. She tells of the extreme difficulty they had in avoiding Nazi infiltration by double agents; of their creativity in hiding evaders in their homes, sometimes in the midst of unexpected searches; of their generosity in sharing their meager food supplies during wartime; and of their unflagging spirit and courage in the face of a war fought on a very personal level.
Critic Reviews:
"A valuable addition to the 'hidden' history of WWII, showing us the men, women, and sometimes children who helped Allied airmen evade capture." (Publishers Weekly)
Members Reviews:
One of the best books about downed airmen in France during WWII!
This is an amazing book and one of the best, easier to read books about downed airmen and the French Resistance networks who helped them escape. Very refreshing to find an author who doesn't try to whitewash the Nazis, too. She just lays it out, without getting to graphic or glossing over the facts. Very balanced, and very easy to read. One of my favorite French Resistance books. Actually took this on vacation to finish reading, it was that compelling!
The book itself is a nice hardback and good binding. The paper is nice and white, and there are some black and white pictures throughout.
and the lifelong camaraderie among those who were part of this terrible, yet refining part of the world's history
A well-researched, well-written and unique account revealing not only the events, strategies, betrayals, and courage of those who operated the escape lines of Vichy France, but how these experiences changed the hearts and minds of those who went through them, and the lifelong camaraderie among those who were part of this terrible, yet refining part of the world's history. I highly recommend the book.
An amazing book about amazing people
Just what I needed. I have had dealings with one of the airmen mentioned, the late Gordon Carter. An amazing book about amazing people. Thank you so much.
Good book
At times dry, but overall very interesting. I like the detail about how they actually hid these people and the tools the downed airmen were given. I tire of depictions of the French as cowardly and passive during WWII; that is not how it was, and this book does an excellent job of depicting the true state of affairs without being overly francophile.
A good book
A well-received gift for my sister-in-law, whose mother, now deceased, was in the French Resistance.
