In the tradition of Paul Brickhill's bestselling The Great Escape, the amazing true story of the the most successful mass Allied escape of World War II from Schubin, Poland The story opens in the stinking latrines of the Schubin camp as an American and a Canadian lead the digging of a tunnel which enabled a break involving 36 prisoners of war (POWs). The Germans then converted the camp to Oflag 64, to exclusively hold US Army officers, with more than 1500 Americans ultimately housed there. Plucky Americans attempted a variety of escapes until January, 1945, only to be thwarted every time. Then, with the Red Army advancing closer every day, camp commandant Colonel Fritz Schneider received orders from Berlin to march his prisoners west. Game on! Over the next few days, 250 US Army officers would succeed in escaping east to link up with the Russians--although they would prove almost as dangerous as the Nazis--only to be ordered once they arrived back in the United States not to talk about their adventures. Within months, General Patton would launch a bloody bid to rescue the remaining Schubin Americans. In The Big Break, this previously untold story follows POWs including General Eisenhower's personal aide, General Patton's son-in-law, and Ernest Hemingway's eldest son as they struggled to be free. Military historian and Paul Brickhill biographer Stephen Dando-Collins expertly chronicles this gripping story of Americans determined to be free, brave Poles risking their lives to help them, and dogmatic Nazis determined to stop them.
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Stephen Dando-Collins is an Australian-born historian and award-winning author who has spent more than three decades studying the individual legions of the Roman army of the late Republic and the empire of the Caesars. He is the author of many books on Rome and its most famous citizens.
Paul Woodson has won SOVAS & Earphones awards, and has recorded close to 350 audiobooks in many different genres—including romance, fiction, history, biography, and mystery—in American and British accents—and received his BFA in acting at Boston University. In his theater days, he worked in many NYC shows, toured the USA and Europe, and starred in NYC as Vincent van Gogh in the sung-through, OOBR Award–winning musical Vincent. He enjoys backpacking the Appalachian Trail and visiting national parks in his spare time. He is a member of SAG-AFTRA.