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The Barbed-Wire University : The Real Lives of Prisoners of War in the Second World War by Midge Gillies (2012, Hardcover)

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Feature films have created the stereotype of the Second World War prisoner of war. He is the spruce, stiff-upper-lipped Alec Guinness in The Bridge on the River Kwai, or Steve McQueen' s cunning and opportunist ' Cooler King' in The Great Escape, the all-American motorbike hero. If he is imprisoned in Europe it will have to be in the forbidding North German Schloss of Colditz or the tunnel-riddled Stalag Luft III. But, as Midge Gillies shows in this groundbreaking work of social history, the true experiences of nearly half a million Allied servicemen held captive during the Second World War were nothing like the Hollywood myth - and infinitely more extraordinary. The real lives of POWs saw them respond to the tedium of a German stalag or the brutality of a Japanese camp with the most amazing ingenuity and creativity. They staged glittering shows, concerts and elaborate sporting fixtures, made exquisite ornaments - even, amid the terrible privations of the Thailand-Burma railway, improvised daring surgical techniques to save their fellow men' s lives. Whatever skills or hobbies they took with them to captivity they managed to continue and adapt - to the extent of laying out a 9-hole golf course between the huts of one German camp. They took up crafts and pastimes using materials they found around them: even the string from a Red Cross food parcel was used to make cricket balls, football nets and wigs for theatrical performances. Men studied, attended lectures, learned languages, sat for qualifications and exams, on such a scale that one camp was nicknamed ' The Barbed-Wire University' . A number of books written by POWs in captivity are still in print today. And often the years in captivity proved a turning-point in their lives, as the new interests and skills they took out of the camp enabled them to embark on a post-war career in which they would succeed at the highest level - whether actors like Clive Dunn and Denholm Elliott, artists like Sir Terry Frost and Ronald Searle, or the birdwatchers who studied rooks and jackdaws beyond the perimeter wire in distant parts of the German Reich and went on to run the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Drawing on letters home, diaries and interviews with redoubtable survivors now into their nineties, Midge Gillies recreates the daily lives of a truly remarkable group of men. It is a story by turns thrilling, funny, desperate and moving, but never less than inspirational.

Product Identifiers

Publisher
Quarto Publishing Group UK
ISBN-10
1845136292
ISBN-13
9781845136291
eBay Product ID (ePID)
111861998

Product Key Features

Book Title
Barbed-Wire University : the Real Lives of Prisoners of War in the Second World War
Author
Midge Gillies
Format
Hardcover
Language
English
Topic
Military / World War II, Military / General, Military / World War I, Customs & Traditions
Publication Year
2012
Genre
History, Social Science
Number of Pages
512 Pages

Dimensions

Item Length
6.4in
Item Height
1.9in
Item Width
9.3in
Item Weight
33.8 Oz

Additional Product Features

Lc Classification Number
D805.A2
Reviews
'Midge Gillies has tackled a colossal subject with calm professionalism and a lightness of touch which makes it a great joy to read. An outstanding piece of scholarship which is as readable as it is informative.', 'Brilliantly researched...Gillies has weaved her findings into a fascinating and deeply moving piece of social history.' Five stars ****, 'What the reader is most likely to take away from this rich and well-researched book is a sense of the extraordinary ingenuity and resourcefulness so many POWs displayed.'
Copyright Date
2011
Target Audience
Trade
Dewey Decimal
940.5472
Dewey Edition
22
Illustrated
Yes

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item 1 The Barbed-Wire University: The Real Lives of Prisoners of War in t - ACCEPTABLE
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item 2 The Barbed-Wire University: The Real Lives of Prisoners of War in the Sec - GOOD
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item 3 The Barbed-Wire University: The Real..., Gillies, Midge
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item 4 The Barbed-Wire University: The Real..., Gillies, Midge
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item 5 The Barbed-Wire University: The Real Lives of Priso... by Midge Gillies Hardback
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item 6 The Barbed-Wire University: The Real Lives of Pris... by Gillies, Midge Hardback
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Picture 1 of 1

The Barbed-Wire University : The Real Lives of Prisoners of War in the Second World War by Midge Gillies (2012, Hardcover)

About this product

Product Information

Product Identifiers

Product Key Features

Dimensions

Additional Product Features

All listings for this product

item 1 The Barbed-Wire University: The Real Lives of Prisoners of War in t - ACCEPTABLE

item 2 The Barbed-Wire University: The Real Lives of Prisoners of War in the Sec - GOOD

item 3 The Barbed-Wire University: The Real..., Gillies, Midge

item 4 The Barbed-Wire University: The Real..., Gillies, Midge

item 5 The Barbed-Wire University: The Real Lives of Priso... by Midge Gillies Hardback

item 6 The Barbed-Wire University: The Real Lives of Pris... by Gillies, Midge Hardback

item 7 The Barbed-Wire University: The Real Lives of Prisoners of War i

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