Freedom The Spur (1954) By Gordon Instone
 
"An escape story with a difference; no barbed wire, tunnels, dummies, or the ingenious contrivances of leisured imprisonment, no elaborate plans for mass escape, but a story of one man's war against Nazi Germany. It paints a vivid and moving picture of France under German domination...a model for anyone who might fall into enemy hands in wartime." -General Sir Frederick Pile
 
Gordon Instone was one of the soldiers charged with helping to defend Calais in 1940. It was a task that he felt woefully unprepared for. They had not been taught to dig trenches to protect themselves from gunfire. They were tasked with trying to fire guns they had never been trained to handle. They were told to destroy tanks and vehicles, only to be asked for them shortly after their destruction had taken place. Instone saw many of his brother soldiers killed and while in one trench survived a blast that killed three others. What makes his story differ from so many other stories of POW escape is that he never ended up in a POW camp. He was first captured in Calais and along with many others was forced to start a march, which seemed unending. He knew that the ultimate destination was likely Germany and felt that his best chance of escape was as early in the march as he could possibly make it. He spoke reasonable French, which was in his favour. The author broke away from the column and managed to find some French patriots willing to assist him. They made him a part of their family and helped him recover from an illness brought on by the lengthy march with little food and water and exposure to the elements. He managed to connect with an R.A.F. officer and they decided to jointly attempt to make their way to the coast. His fitness level was not as good as he had thought and they ended up in an area heavily fortified by the Germans so they decided to retrace their steps and go back to the family who had first sheltered Instone. His next capture came when he was overconfidently moving around the local village and was part of a round-up of local men to provide forced labour in Germany. He escaped that time by killing two of his guards.

In total he made a journey of 900 miles across France including adventures such as time spent in Paris shortly after it had fallen to the Germans. The book gives a good idea of what conditions were like for the locals at that time. He finally managed to escape into Spain where he thought his worries were over. In actual fact they were just beginning as his group were placed in a Spanish concentration camp. (I hadn’t even known such things existed). Lacking proof that he had not been involved in the Spanish Civil War, he faced some pretty terrible conditions while a guest of the Spanish. When finally declared medically unfit for any further fighting, the British managed to get him repatriated first to Gibralter, then on to England. For most of the time of his travels his family had no news of his whereabouts and he was listed as missing and presumed dead. There were elements of romance throughout his travels but thoughts of a fiance at home helped to sustain him.
 
Hard Cover With Dust Jacket
256 pages
In Good Condition