Spy Escape And Evasion Shark Tank Update
Silke Kawaiaea
The flagship course taught by Hanson is the 2-day escape and evasion course. During day one students are learning how to pick locks and escape from bindings. During day two he takes them on a field exercise where students are running around a city, where people are trying to hunt down the students and it is their job to escape and evade the cadre. Hanson has taught this class in various cities, including Los Angeles and along the Las Vegas Strip.
Most courses taught are two days, usually on a Friday and Saturday. The evasive driving course is taught on the property west of Cedar City and also is a 2-day course. Hanson also teaches pistol and rifle courses as well as hand-to-hand combat courses in two days.
The AFEES website welcomes suggestions for books that should be added to the list. Please send them to the webmaster and he will add them to the list. In addition to the author and title, it would be helpful to include the publisher and date and place of publication, if possible.
See also at the bottom of the page the links to other websites for their lists of escape and evasion-related books which may include books not on this list. A good source for used books is AbeBooks.com. A source for new escape and evasion books is the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force gift shop. Some older books may be very expensive to buy, in which case it is worth consulting the World Catalogue at It will list every library where you can find a particular book. You may then be able to borrow a copy through your own library. Another potential source for Air Forces Escape and Evasion is Biblio.com.
Air Forces Escape & Evasion Society. Turner Publishing Co., Paducah, Kentucky, 1992. This book was published by AFEES about the organization with many stories of the escape and evasion of its members. For more about the book and its index to evaders featured in the book, click here.
AFEES, with the Friends of the Air Force Academy Library, jointly produced the dvd EVADE!, Evasion Experiences of American Aircrews in World War II, in 2004. It is copyrighted by AFEES. For further information, click here.
Bilton, Rachel, Great escapes of the First World War, Pen and Sword Military, 2019. Just how far would you go to escape? Would you bury yourself under the floor? Would you board a boat with a rotten bottom? Would you tunnel underground?
Most people might consider these achievements enough for a single career, but he went on to become the man who made Margaret Thatcher, mounting a brilliantly manipulative campaign in the 1975 Tory leadership to bring her to power.
And yet his death is as fascinating as his remarkable life. On Friday, 30 March 1979, a bomb planted beneath his car exploded while he was driving up the ramp of the House of Commons underground car park, killing him instantly. The murder was claimed by the breakaway Irish Republican group, the INLA. His killers have never been identified.
Bodson, Herman, Downed Allied Airmen and Evasion of Capture: The Role of Local Resistance Networks in World War II. Jefferson, No. Carolina: Carolinal & London: McFarland & Co., Inc., 2005. The rise of the Resistance groups in helping Allied airmen. Available from Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
Provenale people still struggle to come to terms with the painful past of split-allegiances and empty stomachs which epitomize les annes noirs (the dark years). Deportations, requisitions, forced labour, and hunger provoked some level of resistance by a courageous minority. Many actively colluded with the enemy, but most just waited for better days. By sea and air, Allied agents and Special Forces were infiltrated to fan the flames, but wherever the Resistance rose up prematurely, the reprisals from the Nazis and their auxiliaries were ferocious.
Bowman, Martin W., Voices in Flight: RAF Escapers and Evaders in WWII, Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen & Sword Aviation, 2014. During WWII, 156 RAF men successfully escaped from German POW camps in Western Europe. A further 1,975 men evaded capture after having been shot down over this same territory. The author draws together tales of a handful of these men, illustrating the bravery and resourcefulness that characterized their experiences. Available from Amazon and AbeBooks.com.
The Weidners in Wartime builds to a devastating climax, raising profound questions about humanity and inhumanity, loyalty and betrayal, duty, and sacrifice, that do not admit easy answers and that linger after the book is set down. These letters, written more than 75 years ago, might inspire in new generations a commitment to selfless and courageous action in the spirit of Jean, Gabrielle, Annette, and the other members of the Dutch-Paris escape line. Available from Amazon, Barnes&Noble, and Waterstones.
Caspers, Elsa, To Save a Life, Memoirs of a Dutch Resistance Courier, London: A Deirdre McDonald Book, 1995. Elsa Caspers was a member of a Dutch Resistance group in the Utrecht area who hid Jewish families and passed Allied airmen and soldiers down the line. She was personally involved in helping Brigadier Hackett to escape after Arnhem. Available from Amazon.
Clark, A.P., 33 Months as a POW in Stalag Luft III: A World War II Airman Tells His Story, Fulcrum Publishing, 2005. An American World War II prisoner tells his version of The Great Escape. See also video on this website, The True Story of the Great Escape of Lt. Gen. Albert P. Clark. Available from Amazon, AbeBooks.
Next was the Comet line, from Brussels to the Pyrenees. Thousands of brave people were to be involved for whom, if caught, the penalty was death. Theirs is a stirring and awe-inspiring story. Respected historian Oliver Clutton-Brock has researched in depth this secret world of evasion, uncovering some treachery and many hitherto unpublished details, operations and photos.
Cooper, Alan, Free to Fight Again, RAF Escapes & Evasions 1940-1945, Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen & Sword Aviation: 2009. To survive baling out from a doomed aircraft or a crash-landing in enemy occupied territory certainly required a large element of luck. To then manage to return to Allied shores inevitably needed considerably more good fortune and often the assistance of local patriots and resistance workers.
Out of the ten thousand British Air Force prisoners who were in permanent camps in Germany in the Second World War, less than thirty ever reached Britain or neutral territory, despite the most energetic and highly-organised attempts. Even so, for many prisoners of war, the arguments in favour of trying to escape were overwhelming.
This book contains the true and often incredible stories of the heroic efforts of the members of the RAF and the Army who tried to escape from prisoner of war camps in Germany. This authoritative account of their many exploits, drawn from the narratives of the men themselves, makes compelling reading.
Daley-Brusselmans, Yvonne, Belgium Rendez-Vous 127 Revisite, Manhattan, Kansas: Sunflower University Press, 2001. A personal account by Yvonne Daley-Brusselmans of how she and her family aided downed Allied airmen and transmitted intelligence to the Allies while living in German-occupied Belgium during WWII. Mrs. Daley-Brusselmans has been a long-time active member of AFEES.
Evans, Alfred John, The Escaping Club, UK: Foothill Media Ltd., 2012. On July 16, 1916, Reconnaissance pilot officer with 3 Squadron RFC crash-landed over enemy territory. Captured, he escaped twice, the second time resulting in his reaching freedom in Switzerland. Sent to Palestine, his plane came down with engine failure and we was taken prisoner by the Turks. He made another escape but was recaptured. Available from Amazon and AbeBooks.
This is the compelling story of an Eternal City brought low, of the terror and hardship of occupation, and of the disparate army of partisan fighters, displaced aristocrats, Vatican priests, Allied POWs, and ordinary citizens who battled for the liberation of Rome. Available from Amazon, Barnes&Noble, and Bookshop.
Grashio, Samuel C. and Norling, Bernard, Return to Freedom: The War Memoirs of Colonel Samuel C. Grashio USAAF, Military Collectors Pr News, 1982. The escape story of Grashio, the only mass escape from a Japanese POW camp. Available from Amazon and AbeBooks. For further information, see Wikipedia article on Grashio.
Jimenez de Aberasturi, Juan Carlos, Camino a la Libertad, La red de evasion Comete y la frontera vasca durante la II Guerra Mundial, Donostia, Spain: Txertoa, 2019. For the complete table of contents and a description by the publisher, click here. The following is a Google translation of a description of the book:
Growing up in the Polish village of Tarnogrod on the fringes of a deep pine forest, Mala Szorer had the happiest childhood she could have hoped for. But at the age of twelve, as the German invasion begins, her beloved village becomes a ghetto and her family and friends reduced to starvation. She takes matters into her own hands and bravely removes her yellow star, risking sneaking out to the surrounding villages to barter for food.
Karlsen, Astrid Scott and Tore Haug, The 12th Man: A WWII Epic of Escape and Endurance, 2017. The 12th Man is the true story of Jan Baalsrud, whose struggle to escape the Gestapo and survive in Nazi-occupied Norway has inspired the international film of the same name. In late March 1943, in the midst of WWII, four Norwegian saboteurs arrived in northern Norway on a fishing cutter and set anchor in Toftefjord to establish a base for their operations. However, they were betrayed, and a German boat attacked the cutter, creating a battlefield and spiraling Jan Baalsrud into the adventure of his life.
The only survivor and wounded, Baalsrud begins a perilous journey to freedom, swimming icy fjords, climbing snow-covered peaks, enduring snowstorms, and getting caught in a monstrous avalanche. Suffering from snow blindness and frostbite, more than sixty people of the Troms District risk their lives to help Baalsrud to freedom. Meticulously researched for more than five years,
c80f0f1006