9781929355068_

Charles Chas Mayhead was one of the millions of young British lads of the 30s who didnt have a clear idea of what they wanted to do with their lives. One thing Chas did know was that he wanted to get out of his working-class London neighborhood and see the world. And he wanted to be able to afford a tailor-made suit. And he wanted to own a car. When his nation called him to military service, he was happy to go in. At least hed have a chance to see something new, have an opportunity to be someone.
Before his basic training was completed, England had declared war on Germany. Suddenly the situation had changed. Chas was assigned duty in the Middle East, and within a year of his enlistment, he was separated from his company in the desert and was captured by the Germans.
What followed was a fascinating and terrifying experience of life as a prisoner during World War II: He was held as a captive in North Africa, shipped in a cargo vessel across the Mediterranean to Italy, and transported by train to a prison camp in Northern Italy. He then escaped across the Alps toward Switzerland, was re-captured just outside the Swiss border, was moved by freight car to a POW camp in Germany, and escaped again when the prisoners marched toward Dresden near the end of the war.
This book is a first-person account of these harrowing experiences. In the book, Chas Mayhead tells what life was like for a prisoner during that nightmarish period of world history. He tells of the differences among the treatments of the prisoners by the Germans vs. the Italians, tells of the tensions among the prisoners themselves, of the kind of work the men did and the kind of food they ate. In his own unique voice, he relates the experiences in the camps, whether it was the barbed-wire holding area in North Africa, the open-air work camp in North Italy, or the cold and muddy labor camp in Germany.
Some of the stories are humorous, filled with the kind of small joys only a prisoner can find. Others are tense and frightening: getting into a fist fight with prison guards, being discovered in an escape attempt, standing before a firing squad, or smuggling food into a barracks. Through it all, though, Chas maintains his strong love of country and his fierce sense of pride. And, obviously, he makes it. He comes out of the experience a changed man. Not changed the way hed wanted to be when he longed to escape his neighborhood, but changed in the way such daily confrontations with death and starvation might change a person: Giving him a recognition of life as a gift, as a daily joy to be appreciated, not taken for granted.

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Charles "Chas" Mayhead was one of the millions of young British lads of the 30s who didnt have a clear idea of what they wanted to do with their lives. One thing Chas did know was that he wanted to get out of his working-class London neighborhood and see the world. And he wanted to be able to afford a tailor-made suit. And he wanted to own a car. When his nation called him to military service, he was happy to go in. At least hed have a chance to see something new, have an opportunity to "be someone".
Before his basic training was completed, England had declared war on Germany. Suddenly the situation had changed. Chas was assigned duty in the Middle East, and within a year of his enlistment, he was separated from his company in the desert and was captured by the Germans.
What followed was a fascinating and terrifying experience of life as a prisoner during World War II: He was held as a captive in North Africa, shipped in a cargo vessel across the Mediterranean to Italy, and transported by train to a prison camp in Northern Italy. He then escaped across the Alps toward Switzerland, was re-captured just outside the Swiss border, was moved by freight car to a POW camp in Germany, and escaped again when the prisoners marched toward Dresden near the end of the war.
This book is a first-person account of these harrowing experiences. In the book, Chas Mayhead tells what life was like for a prisoner during that nightmarish period of world history. He tells of the differences among the treatments of the prisoners by the Germans vs. the Italians, tells of the tensions among the prisoners themselves, of the kind of work the men did and the kind of food they ate. In his own unique voice, he relates the experiences in the camps, whether it was the barbed-wire holding area in North Africa, the open-air work camp in North Italy, or the cold and muddy labor camp in Germany.
Some of the stories are humorous, filled with the kind of small joys only a prisoner can find. Others are tense and frightening: getting into a fist fight with prison guards, being discovered in an escape attempt, standing before a firing squad, or smuggling food into a barracks. Through it all, though, Chas maintains his strong love of country and his fierce sense of pride. And, obviously, he makes it. He comes out of the experience a changed man. Not changed the way hed wanted to be when he longed to escape his neighborhood, but changed in the way such daily confrontations with death and starvation might change a person: Giving him a recognition of life as a gift, as a daily joy to be appreciated, not taken for granted.

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