Unsung heroes - Rated 
I was given this book by an ex WW2 POW, 89 years of age who spent nearly five years in three prison camps in the Silesia area of Poland. I agreed to ghostwrite his book after listening to his incredible story. "Do The Birds Still Sing in Hell?" will be released by Libros International around September 2008. This book provided invaluable research and along with the first hand accounts from my 'old soldier' Horace Greasley, I began to build up a picture of the hell that these unsung heroes went through. These men were little forgotten during WW2, an unfortunate statistic compiled by various governments and occassionally supported from time to time by the Red Cross and delegates from Geneva to see that the rules to their 'convention' were being upheld. They weren't. These men were brutalised, battered, starved, near frozen to death and murdered by a brutal regime that no one must forget terrorised the whole of Europe and beyond just over fifty years ago.
The POW's witnessed their old comrades slaughtered before their very eyes and innocent villagers and refugees shot for the sole reason they couldn't keep pace with a march. Rennel and Nichol weave an unbelievable yet accurate story of the last few months of the war backed up with the harrowing scribblings of the prisoners at the time.
WW2 is depicted and dramatised in the history books and the classrooms of Europe, it tells of Pearl Harbour and the battle of Britain and Nagasaki and Hiroshima and of the glorious battles and bravery of the soldiers from all sides depending who is writing the books or telling the story. But never during my school days did I ever hear one line about these unsung heroes, who even in times of utter desperation and despair managed to cling to some small branch of hope, managed a wise crack or an injection of humour when all seemed lost. Most believed they were about to be murdered by the Germans at the end of the war. Can you imagine (we cannot) what must have went through their heads? Some of them had spent nearly five years in a living lice infested nightmare and just as it seemed that the war was won and they'd be seeing their families soon, they were sent to hell and back and used as bargaining pawns by the allied governments of the time.
The book is a must buy for anyone wanting to learn more about the raw and brutal truth about war and the futility of it all. This book is a must for all scholars of history and if I had my way it would be a compulsory read for 14 & 15 year olds accross the world. This book is disturbing but oh so accurate, it is raw and pasionate and sad. And I take my hat off to those heroes of the camps, each and every one of them and their stories must live on forever. I for one as an author will do my bit.
Ken Scott, author of JACK OF HEARTS, A MILLION WOULD BE NICE, THE SUN WILL STILL SHINE TOMORROW and coming soon, DO THE BIRDS STILL SING IN HELL?
Fantastic - Rated 
What an astonishing read this book is. I never knew about this remarkable story of bravery, courage and fortitude by so many Allied prisoners of war.
Told in a brilliant fashion, this should be read by everybody with an interest in WW2
Humbling and harrowing - Rated
My late mother always said that her father was a hero, captured at St Valery and destined to spend the next 5 years in Stalag XXA. She told me he had to walk home. Until I read this account of the hardship and horrors, I took in the Colditz/Great Escape/Wooden Horse hype. No longer. The fortitude and inner strength displayed by these men is astounding and should be essential reading for any damn fool politician considering yet another immoral and illegal bloody misadventure. And, unusually for a military history, its human interest element makes it come alive. I now KNOW that my grandfather was a silent hero.
Essential reading about WWII POWs - Rated
This important book documents the treatment of allied POWs in disturbing and shocking first-hand accounts from 30-40 former prisoners who managed to survive the experience of being pawns in Hitler's attempts to avoid (or at least delay) defeat, and in Stalin's attempts to get Churchill and Roosevelt to agree to Poland being taken over by the Russians as war ended.
The stories of mass chaos, including tragic friendly fire incidents, and disorganized preparations for liberating and demobilizing allied POWs, reinforced for me why my father was right to get our of his stalag and travel around Europe for several months before eventually returning to Englad to be demobbed.
The Last Escape - Rated
This is quite simply one of the best and most moving books I have ever had the pleasure of reading. It is the often overlooked story of the marches forced upon the British, Commonwealth and American Prisoners of war as the Germans began to walk them from areas of Russia and Poland back towards Berlin after it became apparent that the war was coming to an end. What these men went through (and largely survived) has to be read to be belived and 'humbling' doesn't begin to describe the feelings you are left with after reading the story of these forgotton hero's. A beautiful, hard back, book which would be a bargain at twice the price!
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