War Pilot of Orange: Dutch Fighter Pilot WW II

By Bob Vanderstok, Bob van der Stok, Bob Vanderstok

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0933126891
• ISBN13: 9780933126893
• Release Date: January 1987
• Publisher: Pictorial Histories Publishing Co.
• Length: 204 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.8" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

The Great Escape: A Different Perspective

This book presents the Great Escape from a Dutch perspective. Bob Vanderstok (Brahm van der Stok), the author, was only one of three of the 76 escapees who made it to freedom. Fifty of the 73 recaptured airmen were shot by the Germans in flagrant violation of the Geneva Convention. The book begins with description of Vanderstok's experiences in the Dutch Air Force and then the RAF. His descriptions and photos of the German conquest of the Netherlands are graphic. When later a POW, Vanderstok hears the Germans whining about the Allied bombings of German cities, to which he replies by recounting the deaths and destruction of Warsaw, Rotterdam, and other cities by the German Luftwaffe. Vanderstok elaborates on some events that stand out in the film on the Great Escape. There is the "wire happy" Irishman (not Scot) who flagrantly climbed the wire and got shot. There is a description of the shootout between the French Underground and the Germans at the time that he was being escorted through southern France. Vanderstok contends that tunnel Harry came up short of the woods not owing to an erroneous measurement of the tunnel length, nor an error in estimating the distance to the woods, but because there was a slight error in the direction of its excavation. Vanderstok presents some information not found in other books on Stalag Luft III. For instance, there is an account of an escape attempt using a hot air balloon. It had to be abandoned because there was no way of concealing the homemade balloon before it was ready for action. There is also an account of a small escape being covered up, during the appel (counting parade), by mannequins dressed as the missing men. It almost worked. Unfortunately, there are a number of factual errors in the book which require correction. The tunnel found by the Germans was Tom, not Dick. The head of the tailor department at Stalag Luft III was Tommy Guest, not Pawel Tobolski. The designers of the traps of the three tunnels had been Polish engineers, not Czechs. The designers of the air-bellow pumps for the tunnels had been a Norwegian, not a Czech. Escaping from a POW camp is only half the battle. Following the Great Escape itself, Vanderstok had a long way to go to freedom. Much detail is given about Vanderstok's surreptitious travels across Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, and Gibraltar. After arriving in Bristol, England, he resumed his duties as a combat pilot. He fought until the surrender of Germany. He also reports postwar incidents of German snipers shooting at the Allies, and setting up wires to behead unsuspecting Army motorcyclists. After the war, Vanderstok became a doctor and eventually emigrated to the US. Vanderstok also describes postwar reunions of erstwhile POWs and German guards. Moroever, his book includes photos of many of the locations (in Belgium, southern France, the Pyrenees Mountains, Spain itself) involved in his trek across German-occupied Europe in 1944, and which

World War II Flying ace True story

A dutch fighter pilot,from the 1939 German invasion :his escape from Stalag Luft III ... This is a non stop,can not put down in your face war story.. That it is true with photos of the real people makes it all the more ... great fast read