Overview

Books on prison camps, daring escapes and life with the Resistance abound. Pat Spooner's story is different and more compelling in one important respect. It recounts the gripping and dramatic rescue of two senior British generals (one a VC) and an air vice marshal from occupied Italy by the author and his companion who had themselves both escaped from an Italian PoW camp. This book covers a range of wartime exploits from operating behind Japanese lines in Burma and Malaya to laying secret dumps on remote islands in the Bay of Bengal for the benefit of RAF aircrew unable to reach their base. At the war's end, Pat Spooner, a 25-year-old lieutenant colonel, commanded a war crimes investigation unit in Java and Burma. He describes his personal experiences of the intensive efforts to track down and bring to justice the perpetrators of some of the foulest crimes ever committed by Man. Then, as a senior staff officer (Assistant Adjutant General) he spent a further twelve months controlling the nerve centre, in Singapore, of the entire war crimes organisation in Southeast Asia involving 18 investigation units. SELLING POINTS: A truly remarkable story of a young Gurkha officer of the Second World War early wartime service in Iraq, Syria and gthe Western Desert Captured at Tobruk and imprisoned in Italy Escaped and also helped two generals and an air vice marshal to escape from Italy Served with the RAF laying supply dumps for downed aircrew on islands near the Bay of Bengal Served on war crimes investigations in Java and Burma ILLUSTRATIONS: 18 b/w

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9781848848108

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A former M19 secret agent has been entertaining people at an event in Guildford with tales of his escapades. - Surrey Times Nestled in a leafy Guildford side street is the quiet home of a former M19 secret agent, who was fat tracked to military honours after his adventurous escapes, raids and rescue missions during the Second World War. A grandfather now, and more than 70 years since the war broke out and Lieur-Col Spooner was captured in Tobruk, but the stories he has to tell are as gripping as any Hollywood blockbuster. - Surrey Advertiser

A former M19 secret agent has been entertaining people at an event in Guildford with tales of his escapades. - Surrey Times

Author Information

Pat Spooner is an author and historian.

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