Adrian Vincent’s account of his WWII experiences as a POW is very well written, often funny but at times very sad. I’ve read a number of books on the POW experience, because my father was a POW in Germany, mostly at Stalag 2B—he was on a similar winter march across Germany that Adrian Vincent suffered through. Ironically, while Mr. Vincent was liberated by the Americans, my father was liberated by the Brits.
What drew me to “The Long Road Home,” was that Vincent was a POW for five years, a very long time. I thought my father, being wounded and captured in Tunisia by Rommel’s troops on February 14, 1943, had spent a long time as a POW, but not compared to Vincent.
Their POW experiences were similar, although Vincent appeared to have more freedom at camp and on his work details—perhaps that’s because my father and his group were fond of escaping. My father escaped three times, once staying free for a month. He said escaping wasn’t too difficult, but staying free was very difficult. Captured after his last attempt, the Germans promised to shoot him if he tried again—he didn’t.
Also, there was little mention of sabotage by the POWs in Vincent’s book, while my father’s group frequently, but surreptitiously, rendered farm equipment inoperative or destroyed supplies, often by acting ignorant. But, he and friends were U.S. Army Rangers, so they were trained to destroy stuff by any means necessary. A handful of those same Rangers landed at Dieppe with British Commandos during the Dieppe raid, which Vincent mentions. He doesn’t mention the Commandos or Rangers, but couldn’t have known.
In fact, nearing the end of the book, Vincent, while writing about the Germans, French, Italians, Russians and Poles, had yet to mention the Americans, and I was beginning to fret. But on page 200, he mentioned Patton, and, of course, after being liberated by American troops, he writes much about them, some positive, some negative, which was, of course, appropriate.
Bottom line: a very good book, good history, good entertainment, and I’m glad Adrian Vincent got out of the war in one piece.
Anyone interested in reading more regarding the Allied POW experience during WWII in Europe might try, “The Last Escape: The Untold Story of Allied Prisoners of War in Europe 1944-45,” “Twice to Freedom: Stalag 2B,” or, “Soldiers of Misfortune: Washington’s Secret Betrayal of American POWs in the Soviet Union,” the latter a book recommended to me by a U.S. Army Ranger/POW who found himself in the Soviet Sector at war’s end and swore the book was true.
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Must read to balance Great Escape fantasy
