Review of book Canadian Wartime Prison Escapes by author Peter Conrad, Folklore Publishing (2007) 246 pp.
Canadian authors looking to write about the Canadian experience in the two World Wars have a wealth of untapped material to delve into. With Canadian Wartime Prison Escapes, Edmonton-based author Peter Conrad attempts to do just that, exploring some of the little-known stories of Canadian soldiers and airmen who were involved in not only POW camp escapes, but who also managed to avoid capture when shot down or otherwise trapped behind enemy lines. It also outlines some of the escapades of Canadians who volunteered to serve in occupied Europe to help Allied escapees as well as support local resistance efforts against the occupying Germans.
Despite the title, nine of the 10 escape chapters (more to come on chapter 11) deal with World War II. As Conrad explains, this was because during World War I there was no organized Resistance or “underground” escape system for those who had been captured by the enemy, and little to no hope of success for those who tried. More to the point, prisoners in WW I were simply not expected to try and escape their captors, and, in fact, it was considered ungentlemanly for captured officers to even contemplate such a thing. In addition, those who did escape were treated with suspicion once they arrived back in friendly territory, and often had to go to great lengths to prove they actually did escape, and weren’t simply released to act as spies for the enemy. Thus, there were only 99 documented cases of Canadian soldiers – and only one officer - escaping from the Germans in WW I.
Unfortunately, while readers will gain an insight into a Canadian war experience they likely know little about, Canadian Wartime Prison Escapes suffers in two main areas. One is the complete lack of anecdotes, either though interviews with survivors, first-hand accounts taken from diaries or memoirs, or secondary sources such as books or military records, from the men who actually took part. Instead, as Conrad explains in the introduction: “The dialogue, thoughts and emotions of the of the characters are the writer’s invention, since it is impossible to know the feelings of people at the time or the words exchanged.” Well, really? I personally have met one former Canadian airman who was in Stalag Luft III at the time of the “Great Escape” who would have been happy to fill Conrad in. Furthermore, in the 13 sources Conrad cites in the back of the book, it’s hard to believe none would contain actual reminisces of the men involved. Canadian military intelligence would have interviewed all escapees, and it’s possible some record of those interviews exist somewhere in the National Archives (Conrad doesn’t indicate if he looked, and his only government source is a book much like his own published by the Veteran’s Affairs Department). In this regard, one wishes Conrad had done a little more digging.
At the same time, Conrad’s book would have benefited from a bit heavier editorial hand. For instance, Conrad makes clear in his introduction that few escapes could have been possible without the help of the local people in occupied Europe who risked their lives to provide such help. Fair enough. He then goes on to make that same point again, and again. And again, to the point where the reader feels like throwing up their hands in surrender. In the chapter on escaping from Italian POW camps, Conrad writes: “Those who were in the camps knew that many rural Italians were anti-Tedske [German]. The escapees knew they would get help from the local people as the prisoners made their way south to join the invading Allied force.” Two paragraphs later, Conrad writes: “[Patrick] like other Allied personnel, had been instructed to stay with rural people if he escaped because rural Italians were usually anti-fascist and anti-Tedske. They would provide assistance even though it was known they would be shot if they were found harbouring escapees.” Near the end of the same chapter, Conrad again writes: “Rural farmers and their families who had no sympathy for the fascists and looked forward to the end of the war assisted many men.” Okay, we get it, rural Italians were helpful and anti-German, no need to tell us three times. Whether Conrad is writing about the French, Dutch, Belgians or others who aided the escaping Allies, the theme is repeated.
Finally, the last chapter of the book is a bit, well, short, both in length and detail. Although the title ‘Those Who Made it Home’ might imply a post-War, post-script on the lives of some of the escapees we meet in the book, only the single WW I officer to escape, Peter Anderson, receives any detailed personal attention. For the dozens of WW II escapees he writes about, Conrad goes no further than to tell us “…those who escaped and made it back to Canada focused on living a life of security and prosperity. They took jobs, and many had families while others suffered the effects of being prisoners of war.”
Security, prosperity, jobs and families pretty much sums up the wish list of every Canadian to have fought in the World Wars. It was the unique wartime experience of the men in Canadian Wartime Prison Escapes that makes their story compelling. Having given us the plot, one wishes Conrad had been able to flesh out his characters a little more.
