The Long Way Home: The Other Great Escape

John McCallum has written a pacy blow by blow account of his war years. He writes in a concise and open manner. After 4 years of imprisonment in Germany he made a successful escape with his brother and a close friend through Sweden and ended up returning to Germany in 1945 working in military intelligence. Very few POWs made successful escapes and many more were shot and killed during the attempt. McCallum was clearly a resourceful and determined man but his humility and humanity shine through.

Despite being written by someone who is neither a professional writer nor an historian, this book is an engaging and rewarding read. It tells the story of three men who escaped from a German prison camp in WWII and made their way back to Britain. Crucially, it is written by one of those who made the escape; it is not "ghost-written" but expressed in his own words and in his own way. John McCallum (no relation to this reviewer) waited many years before writing the book, feeling that he was bound by the Official Secrets Act, but obviously his memory was still clear. The great strengths of the book are its simplicity and clarity. He does not indulge in fashionable moralising but instead sticks to his story, which is presented strictly from the viewpoint of the three "ordinary lads" from Glasgow. His purpose is to tell how it was done, without puffed-up heroics and without invented introspection. He is also quite honest in his portrayal of himself, his comrades, and those involved in the escape. The three men had signed up together in the Territorial Army and were later mobilised and sent to France in 1940, where they were captured. The author is full of praise, for instance, for the German and captive English doctors who treated his wound, not only as first aid but with complicated surgery that ensured he would not be crippled. He and his friends were sent to prison camps in the east of Germany and in Bohemia, where they spent several years mostly on outside work parties, which allowed them to work on farms and small businesses in what was still a quiet rural area. When they finally decided to make an escape, it depended vitally on McCallum's local paramour, who provided essential intelligence, clothing, food, and even documents, and on support from French and other forced labour camps. During the escape, walking and taking trains north to a Baltic port from which they sneaked on board a merchant boat going to Sweden, they encountered numerous situations in which they fully expected to be exposed and arrested - but weren't; McCallum attributes this success to "luck", which was on their side most of the time. It also seems that sometimes they succeeded because they were not trying to be too clever or sophisticated in their plans, but rather, were going more on instinct. They survived one bit of bad luck when they were coming into a train station to discover that it was swarming with Gestapo and military police because the now-famous "Great Escape" had just occurred and security was very tight indeed. It is a refreshingly honest tale, which makes an important and unique addition to WWII escape literature.

I quite enjoyed this book, it flowed quite well once you got passed the initial section on PoW's and their treatment.It is a really interesting story and gives another perspective on Allied PoW's conditions as it seems the author missed most of the bad experiences written about in other books. Either that or he plays it down quite well.My only complaint is that the escape section of the book is not as detailed or as long as I thought it would be. This is possible down to the straight forward route they picked but still would have been nice for it to be fleshed out.Even so I would still recommend giving this a read as it is worth the time.

Whilst this book doesn't have the pace or suspense of a modern day novel, it more than makes up for in the genuineness of the telling. If you are looking for graphic depictions of 'man's inhumanity to man' or gratuitous violence, then this isn't for you. But if you want to know what it was like for a few brave men, then I would thoroughly recommend this book. I enjoyed it cover to cover, and it held my interest the whole way through.

Excellent , just missing a tad more detail but so what! , recommended if you have any interest in W W 2

Rather Good - not the usual stiff upper lip style but told from an enlisted mans perspective.Brought home to me a facet of the war that is hardly publicised at all to my knowledge - how our men were treated immediately after Dunkirk by the Germans.Quite an insight on how the strong survived - well worth reading!

The book was recommended to me and I found it a really good,could not put it down, read it from cover to cover. It did not dwell on the hardship of being a POW more an account of the mindset of these men during a long period of captivity.Given the interest in the recent released "Railway Man" this would make a great candidate for the big screen.

This is a fascinating story of the successful escape from prison camp of 3 men during the 2nd world war. The only criticism i have is it lacks some detail and a certain immediacy. The book was written many years after the war and it shows. As a cheap kindle book however you can't go wrong.