From the Synopsis: Neal Bascomb, New York Times best-selling author, delivers the spellbinding story of the downed Allied airmen who masterminded the remarkably courageous--and ingenious--breakout from Germany's most devilish POW camp. Captured soldiers and pilots imprisoned in Germany's archipelago of POW camps, often in abominable conditions. The most infamous was Holzminden, a land-locked Alcatraz of sorts that housed the most troublesome, escape-prone prisoners. Its commandant was a boorish, hate-filled tyrant named Karl Niemeyer who swore that none should ever leave. A group of Allied prisoners led by ace pilot (and former Army sapper) David Gray hatch an elaborate escape plan. Once they escape, Gray and almost a dozen of his half-starved fellow prisoners must then make a heroic 150 mile dash through enemy-occupied territory towards free Holland.

The Escape Artists is a narrative fiction book that pulled me in and kept me listening, often on the edge of my seat. I have read about POW camps in the second world war, but nothing about WW1. These camps were brutal and the commandants didn't follow any rules of war of how to treat their prisoners. They were starved, tortured and when ill or injured, left to lie painfully. The crux of this book is about the various escapes that the Allied soldiers and pilots attempted at various times and from different camps, usually recaptured and returned to camp, eventually ending up in Holzminden, where ten men escape and reach neutral Holland. I learned about the various attempts, plans and the one that eventually succeeded. This is a story of brotherhood, courage, endurance, and genius that allowed this small group to prove Karl Niemeyer wrong. A book I recommend to those who like to read nonfiction, or books about survival during the WW1.

My thoughts

Would I recommended? Yes, but only to the ones that are in to this type of history

Would I read more by this author? It would depended on the type of book.

For those who know me I'ma big reader when it comes to nonfiction especially about WW 2 ,but for some unknown reason I've only picked up handful of books about WW 1 and I'm so glad I give this one a chance. Because the author did an amazing job doing his researched account of escape attempts (both successful and unsuccessful) by British soldiers doing this time, I can't believe that it took me this long to pick it up and read it. The characters come to life and you can literally feel what they went though before and after they was caught, how they never lost the their well to fight no matter hard it got,so with that said I want to thank the publisher as well as NetGalley for letting me read review the book.

I love survival stories. And it was great to read a true story of brave British Soldiers during The Great War. This book was very well researched and the personal details of the men really added to the narrative. It was also nice to read something that was not WWII! Such brave men! It was a must read for history buffs and lovers of action.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review this book.

The true story of British soldiers held as POWs by the Germans in WW1, and their plot to escape and rejoin their comrades in arms. This is a gripping tale, obviously well researched, and filled with personal details that bring the story to life. A must read for anyone who is a fan of history and suspense/adventure tales. Perfect for those who loved Unbroken.

One caveat -- although the extreme detail brings the story to life and adds dimension to each of the characters, at times the story drags because of some long passages and frequently the sentence structure & vocabulary choices seem a bit forced. I still think this is a very good book, but can't help but believe that a good editor would have made this a great book.

This is the second book I have read that details this same escape. This one is better.

Especially good are the brief biographies given of the principal engineers of the escape from the Holzminden POW camp.

The story builds suspensefully, as it should, until the escape itself, then follows the travels of the 10 who successfully navigated WWI Germany to reach and cross the border of Holland.

Excellent story of the first and original "Great Escape".

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and NetGalley provided me with an electronic copy of The Escape Artists" A Band of Daredevil Pilots and the Greatest Prison Break of the Great War. I was under no obligation to review this book and my opinion is freely given.

Author Neal Bascomb immediately transports readers with The Escape Artists, a comprehensive look at one of the greatest prison escapes during World War I. Allied pilots were often shot down and captured, then subsequently transported to any number of POW camps on German soil. The pilots who tried to escape from their camps multiple times were ultimately sent to Holzminden, a land-locked prison that was approximately 150 miles from the border with Holland. With a high concentration of escape artists all housed in one place, however, the chances were good that plans to liberate themselves were in the works at all times. The author takes readers on a journey, from the each of the pilot's capture, to their many escape attempts, and to their eventual victory.

The biggest issue that I had with The Escape Artists is that the author tries to convey too much information to the reader. Telling both the capture and the escape attempts for each man bogged the story down, taking away what should have been extremely compelling to read. As these POW camps were very important in history, due to the fact that the Germans used their experiences to help mold and shape the concentration camps to come in World War II, the author did not convey this information fully to the reader. As I know very little about the World War I POW camps, I would have liked to have had a more contextual reference point. The second half of The Escape Artists is more thrilling to read, as the author gets to the meat of the story. Overall, author Neal Bascomb does a good job of telling the story of these real life heroes. I would recommend The Escape Artists to readers who have an interest in World War I history.

2018 was the 100th anniversary of the Armistice of World War I. This war had a profound impact on the twentieth century, people’s everyday lives (even in places like America whose soil was not trampled upon by armies unlike Europe, but who sacrificed many young men to the cause). (My Texan grandfather was incredibly proud of his service in that war as a Marine.). And those impacts shaped the way we are living our lives in 2019. This is why we should learn about The Great War.

Neal Bascomb has written a book to culminate this anniversary year that details lots of prison outbreaks including the most notable escape of the war when 29 British officers managed to escape from a notorious German POW camp through a tediously dug and claustrophobic tunnel before it collapsed. The title of the book is:
The Escape Artists: A Band of Daredevil Pilots and the Greatest Prison Break of the Great War.

I love the title of the review of this book in The Wall Street Journal:
‘The Escape Artists’ Review: Keep Calm and Keep Shoveling

The reader must keep a little calm and keep shoveling through the 336 pages of this book—I cannot tell a lie. Because Bascomb has done an excellent job of research about a LOT of POWs, a LOT of POW camps, and a LOT of escape attempts and details that research as background information in the first two-thirds of this book leading up to the portion that details the great escape. It takes focus to keep all of these characters and incidents straight. But it pays off at the end. And themes that run through the entire book of honor and integrity and duty and perseverance.

These two quotes from the beginning of the book exemplify this:

“Stone Walls do not a Prison make. Nor Iron bars a Cage.
—Inscription on Holzminden cell wall, from Richard Lovelace poem “To Althea, from Prison”

It seems to me that we owed it to our self-respect and to our position as British officers to attempt to escape, and to go on attempting to escape, in spite of all hardships. —A. J. Evans, inveterate World War I breakout artist”

The book begins in World War II—not World War I— and details how quietly and secretly one of those escapees from WWI counseled soldiers in this new war how to survive and escape if they became POWs in Germany:

“Bennett illustrated his account with slides showing his aircraft, the camps in which he had been imprisoned, coded letters, and tools used in various escape attempts. He spoke about Holzminden, the most notorious POW camp of the Great War, and the tunnel he and his fellow inmates had dug to escape its walls —how, over months, they had scraped away dirt, clay, and stone to burrow an underground passageway, inch by inch. He chronicled their preparations for the treacherous 150-mile journey through Germany to reach the Dutch border, how they had smuggled in supplies and hidden them in fake ceiling beams.

Although Bennett had delivered this lecture many times, his voice still conveyed the range of emotion he had experienced during the breakout from Holzminden. No doubt his audience was riveted as he described the events of that night: The thrill of the call to go. The first moments moving into the tunnel on his belly, clawing his way forward in the darkness without enough space overhead even to raise himself up on his forearms. The stalled advance. The rats scampering over his arms and legs. The muffled grunts and panicked breaths of the men in front of him and those behind.

The straps of his escape kit getting caught on a rock. The hour it took to travel a distance he could have walked in a minute. The tunnel roof that was slowly collapsing on top of him, threatening to entomb him and all those who remained. The terror of possibly facing a rifle when he surfaced at last . . .

The sense of responsibility Bennett felt made his retelling all the more visceral and electric. The young men gathered before him were running defensive patrols against German raiders and participating in offensive sweeps over France. There was a good chance that some of them would soon find themselves behind enemy lines, held as POWs or on the run. Given the Nazi reputation for torturing, and sometimes hanging, captured airmen, Bennett knew that his story, the story of the leaders of the 1918 Holzminden breakout, might well save the life of a pilot in that hall.”

There are many notable portions I could quote from the book, but I will close with the last paragraph which really sums up the spirit of these men:

“Outside his MI9 lectures, Bennett rarely spoke about his captivity or escape. His family had no idea about his subsequent service in World War II until they found a dusty folder with papers that included his speech notes and travel receipts after his death in 1983 at the age of ninety-one. Instead, he focused his life on building a business, being a good friend, investing in a happy marriage, and raising a son and daughter. He was there to ensure that his children, Graham and Laurie, followed his version of the Golden Rule —“Do as you would be done by” —and to teach them how to ride a bicycle and drive a car. The opportunity to do so in freedom, in his own country, was reward enough for his contribution to the greatest escape of the Great War.”

I would also like to quote from the author’s webpage the description of the book:

“In the winter trenches and flak-filled skies of World War I, soldiers and pilots alike might avoid death, only to find themselves imprisoned in Germany’s archipelago of POW camps, often in abominable conditions. The most infamous was Holzminden, a land-locked Alcatraz of sorts that housed the most troublesome, escape-prone prisoners. Its commandant was a boorish, hate-filled tyrant named Karl Niemeyer who swore that none should ever leave.
Desperate to break out of “Hellminden” and return to the fight, a group of Allied prisoners led by ace pilot (and former Army sapper) David Gray hatch an elaborate escape plan. Their plot demands a risky feat of engineering as well as a bevy of disguises, forged documents, fake walls, and steely resolve. Once beyond the watch towers and round-the-clock patrols, Gray and almost a dozen of his half-starved fellow prisoners must then make a heroic 150 mile dash through enemy-occupied territory towards free Holland.
Drawing on never-before-seen memoirs and letters, Neal Bascomb brings this narrative to cinematic life, amid the twilight of the British Empire and the darkest, most savage hours of the fight against Germany. At turns tragic, funny, inspirational, and nail-biting suspenseful, this is the little-known story of the biggest POW breakout of the Great War.”

Also from the author’s webpage an answer to the question of why learning about this century old prison break still matters:

“First off, they still teach escape and evasion in the Armed Forces. You can thank some of the lessons from the “breakout artists” for some of the syllabus. Second, how we treat POWs—and our own are treated—is always critical. Related to this—and most importantly—is the question of honor. Honor to one’s prisoner. Honor to one’s self. Honor to one’s comrade. WWI was a watershed moment in terms of our very understanding of honor, a war that seemed to shred the very idea with its horrors and wanton wastage of men. It was also a time when an officer-prisoner would be allowed to take parole (i.e. a walk) outside the walls unattended on the promise he would not escape. Holzminden was a crucible within which the honor of the Germans and their Allied prisoners was tested. Understanding why some stood up well—and some fell–is as relevant today as ever. It’s what drew me so strongly to the story.”

Thank you Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and NetGalley for the Advanced Reader’s Copy of this history/biography and for allowing me to review it. Publication date was September 2018.

A dramatic story set in a war that is too often forgotten -- the premise of this book is excellent, but Bascomb's account of one of the most daring prisoner-of-war escapes in modern history suffers from a disjointed narrative. In the attempt to include the background and context for each man who participated (there were 29 escapees), the story drags and loses focus. And while I am personally a fan of FW Harvey, the British war poet who was a POW, Bascombe's heavy focus on him in the narrative is unclear, as he wasn't one of the men who participated in the escape -- he merely knew many of those who attempted the breakout.

I love WWI history, and so I slogged through the book, but it was tedious going for long stretches (there are fascinating parts of the book, such as the disguises used by several in the escape -- but readers have to work hard to get this far). Movie rights have been advertised -- perhaps the editing hand of a filmmaker will make the movie better than the book.

A riveting story is about prisoners of WW1 and the efforts/commitments they made upon being captured to try to escape from the German prison camps.

One of the fascinating things learned in the book was the reciprocal agreement between the Germans and the allied troops (primarily English) that if an officer was caught trying to escape, he would just be assigned to another prison camp, unlike the enlisted who were summarily executed. Fascinating stories surrounding the “escape artists” and their backgrounds, bravery, hardships and details of outlandish escapes. Punishments, isolations, cruel treatment continued despite the best efforts of the dedicated Red Cross. German prisoners were treated so much better than our allied forces.

Told in sections, this book recounts the little known escape of Allied prisoners from a German POW camp during World War I. This book reminded me very much of The Great Escape and was very well written. The first sections introduce the men who were heavily involved in the escape and also explain how each one ends up in the same German prison camp from separate missions. From there the author goes into great detail describing how the men banded together using their own unique skills to construct a tunnel and a plan in order to escape from one of the worst prison camps in Germany. There is also an epilogue explaining the aftermath of the escape and the end of the war as well as the list of the men who made it out and those who didn't. There is a helpful list of the people involved in the front of the book that helps the reader keep all of the names straight. An extensive chapter by chapter breakdown of endnotes and a large bibliography add credence to this book and provide many resources for those who want to research the events further. I highly recommend this book to history buffs and anyone who enjoys learning more about historical events.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. A positive review was not required, and all opinions expressed are entirely my own.

During WWI numerous pilots and soldiers found themselves as prisoners of war. This book outlines the myriad of places that they were kept and their numerous attempts at escape. Although this was a very interesting book, I think it tried to present too many characters. It would have been better to focus on 4 or 5 characters, rather than telling fragments of dozens of men. Despite this criticism, I did enjoy this book and will recommend it to others.

This is a fascinating look at a facet of history which hasn't been widely explored even in popular military histories; the escapes undertaken by Allied prisoners of war held in Germany during World War One. This is a study of many of these escapes, both successful and failed, which culminates in attention to the most successful and largest escape of all; it's genuinely fascinating.

The Escape Artists

by Neal Bascomb

War is such a horrible thing—vicious, destructive, and despicable. It brings out the worst and the best in man. We see both in Neal Bascomb’s true recounting of the largest escape of WWI by the British at one time—twenty-nine officers of whom ten actually made it out of Germany to Holland without being recaptured.

Bascomb’s well-researched tale The Escape Artists is divided into four major sections. In the first, “Capture,” he provides a glimpse into the personalities and lives of some of the major players in the escape, their role in the military, and the circumstances of their capture.

The second section, “All Roads Lead to Hellminden,” describes a number of interment camps but focuses especially on notorious twin commandants, Karl and Heinrich Niemeyer. Both prisoners and commandants could be transferred at whim in Germany and being transferred could be positive or negative for a prisoner. This section details life in the camp and shows a better situation for officers than that experienced by enlisted soldiers who were put in labor camps. Officers, instilled with the patriotic drive to do whatever they could to hinder the enemy and return home to fight again, spent a lot of their energy devising and executing escape plans. If their attempts were unsuccessful or they were recaptured, the punishment was generally a long and uncomfortable time in a small isolation cell—dark, very hot or very cold, dirty, overrun with vermin, and little food. This trial on the body, mind, and spirit might last several days, weeks or months. Nevertheless, instead of deterring escape attempts, it prodded the officers into yet more clever tries.

“The Tunnel” describes the huge group effort spearheaded by an officer named Gray to construct a very long tunnel and plan how to proceed once outside the walls of Holzminden. All of the background material in the first two sections was essential, but at this point the story really takes off and you will want to keep reading until finished. The last section. “Breakout,” shares the actual escape attempt.

To write this book, Bascomb read a lot of books on the escape and the interment camps, interviewed descendants of the officers, and relied greatly on primary documents including memoirs and letters from the time. His narrative style is effective and the subject matter is interesting. Having read several books on labor and death camps, it was interesting to read about the British officers, drawn from all over the globe. Many of them were young pilots from exclusive schools and families. They had little training, but were very patriotic and had a honed sense of duty and honor. One surprising detail for me was that the imprisoned officers were able to write to their families and receive packages and money from them. Not everything went smoothly in that process, but they were better off than those in labor camps. They even had orderlies from the enlisted ranks of prisoners to make their beds, etc. This was not a luxury situation by any means, and the men were quite bored and frustrated whiling away time when they felt they should be fighting.

Neal Bascomb is a former journalist who turned to writing nonfiction books full-time in 2000. He is the award winning author of nine books for adults and three for young adults.

I would like to extend my thanks to netgalley.com and to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 5/5

Category: History

Publication: September 18, 2018—Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Memorable Lines:

The greatest resistance of all would be to escape.

None of the diplomats gathered in The Hague in 1899 or 1907 could have anticipated the vast populations of prisoners that would come out of industrialized total war—nor the challenges this would involve. In the first six months of World War I, 1.3 million soldiers became POWs across Europe.

The arrival in December of Harold Medlicott had bolstered the mood throughout the camp. The officers believed that if anybody could escape Holzminden and humiliate Karl Niemeyer, it was Medlicott. A legend even to the German guards, he had broken out of nine camps already, never using the same method twice.

Harvey might not get another chance to escape, but in aiding Cartwright, as in countless other efforts to help his fellow prisoners, he found freedom within. In his own way, he was a breakout artist.

Escape from a WWI Prisoner of War Camp

The light fighter planes flown many times by inexperienced pilots during WWI often crashed in enemy territory. The pilots then found themselves in prisoner of war camps. The prisoner of war camps in Germany were horrible. The prisoners were often starved, freezing, and ill. In spite of the hardships, many tried to escape and more than once.

Prisoners who were prone to escape were sent to Holzminden, one of the worst camps. The commandant vowed that no prisoners would escape from his camp, but in fact one of the most daring and successful escapes occurred under his nose. The prisoners tunneled out and several of them survived the 150 mile journey to Holland. This is the story of the men and their escape.

This is a well-researched book. If you’re a fan of WWI stories, you shouldn’t miss this one. The early part of the book goes into detail about the prisoners and the escape attempts. This can be a bit hard to follow because so many characters are involved. However, once the story focuses on the escape from Holzminden, the pace picks up.

The men accomplished an amazing engineering feat building a tunnel under the prison, but also building false walls to hide what they were doing and getting forged documents. This is a suspenseful tale that reads more like a novel than a history book. I highly recommend it.

I received this book from Net Galley for this review.

This is a excellent history of the POW situation in Germany in the First World War, and the intrepid pilots and air crews who did their all to escape and get back into the planes that would win the war. I found it very enlightening and even entertaining at times, with never a dull moment. We forget, in this day and age, just how fragile were the planes in the early twentieth century, and how nasty that war got before it was over. The Geneva Convention was just a name as far as Germany was concerned and the POW camps were run by party favorites and misfits, adding to the problems faced by British and French POWs.

This is history of those men, that war, that I can highly recommend to both historical readers and those of a more military bent.

I received a free electronic copy of this history from Netgalley, Neal Bascomb, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in exchange for an honest review. Thank you all, for sharing your hard work with me.

An extremely well-researched account of escape attempts (both successful and unsuccessful) by British soldiers during WW I.

As most of these were pilots, readers get a vivid account of what life was like for those early pilots, as warfare made its shift skyward. The attrition rate was as terrible as it became in QQ II, but these guys still were willing to risk it. Some even relished the risk.

They brought the same attitude toward trying to escape, though conditions in prisoner of war camps were abysmal, especially under a particular pair of German commanders notorious for their cruelty and avarice.

Relying on wartime reports as well as personal letters and diaries, Bascomb takes the time to provide backgrounds on his main characters, giving at least sketches of many others. The bulk of the book leads up to, and includes, a mass escape (over seventy men before the tunnel began to collapse), and what happened after. Unlike The Great Escape of WW II, a bunch of these guys made it.

Bascomb writes with verve, demonstrating a thorough knowledge of his subject. Absorbing, often grim, read for those interested in WW I history.

This was a very interesting and enjoyable book; 4+ stars. It was fun to read about the various escape attempts, both those that succeeded (whether temporarily or permanently) and those that failed, sometimes in comedic fashion. Yet, while there are some very amusing parts of the story, including some of the ways the British and Empire POWs resisted the abusive behavior of camp commanders or guards, there are some very sobering parts of the story, as the author details the horrors of trench warfare, the danger of aerial warfare in its infancy (including the high death rate in training), and the horror and indignities experienced by POWs. The author portrays the fortitude and strength of will of many of the prisoners as they endured daily deprivations and indignities and as they plotted their escapes, but he also portrays the hopelessness and deep distress experienced by many prisoners, especially through the story of the English Poet F.W. Harvey, who experienced deep depression at times during his captivity. The ingenuity and resourcefulness of the prisoners, especially the main escape artists, was impressive. This was a well-researched, well written, and balanced story that allows the reader to get an intimate sense of various aspects of World War I.

The Escape Artists should appeal to WW1 history buffs. It sent me to the internet several times to find out more about the places and people mentioned. It would be a good literature selection to use in conjunction with a history class at the high school or college level. I found it to be a rather slow read. I never got swept up in the story.

This is an excellent history of a subject that is not that well represented in the history section - probably because it deals with WWI instead of WWII. Luckily ever since 2014 when the first WWI centennials were observed more and more information about WWI has been published and a new generation of readers are introduced to the terrible first world war, a war of such devastation it is sad that this wasn't the last world war. As in all wars, along with casualties there are prisoners taken and this very readable book details a particular group of POWs -- Allied pilots who were shot down and taken prisoner by the Germans. That there were pilots that survived to go to prison was somewhat remarkable given the extreme flimsiness of WWI aircraft and the large number of pilots who were killed relatively soon after they were sent on missions.
This history concentrates on the officers who spent most of their imprisonment planning and trying to escape German hands, usually unsuccessfully. If you have read WWII and after prisoner accounts you will be surprised at several big differences. The class difference between enlisted and officers was huge -- most POW camps were for enlisted or officers (and the enlisted were often sent into mines and other brutal work sites to toil for the Germans). The officers did have some enlisted in their camps - to work as their orderly's -- make their beds, bring them tea, etc! This was a job that was often given to enlisted that had been injured and was considered a great job. The officers were not expected to work and if they tried to escape and were recaptured they would be punished by solitary confinement. If enlisted tried to escape and were recaptured they were often put to death so between hard labor and such mortal punishment most enlisted did not spend all their time plotting escape. One other interesting part of WWI POW confinement was that officers could write regularly to their families AND receive packages from them. Many times their packages were torn apart and things stolen by German guards but still this was a regular part of their lives.
By 1917 many repeat escape offenders were sent to a prison camp called Holzminden and the great escape of the title is located at this camp. Compared with some escapes in WWII not that many men actually escaped. However as the author notes, lessons learned by WWI POWs were passed down in training to British soldiers in WWII and directly contributed to successful escapes in that later war. This is a very readable history that will keep you engrossed.

10 men, a variety of situations that caused them to become prisoners but they all ended up in the hellmind together where they vowed to not die there. The author builds the tension up with great background that can only be done in a good book.

Neal Bascomb who has had much success already takes a story of "tunnels" from WW1, I mean he takes true history and thrills us with a constant building of pressure up to the run of the 29. Heroes don't kneel my friends they FIND A WAY; and you can read it all in this great 5 star offering from NET GALLEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!