The Comet: Resistance, Betrayal and the Most Thrilling Adventure of WWII
Autor Ed Caesaren Limba Engleză Hardback – 3 apr 2027
'Starts with a bang and never lets up until the final page. Compulsively readable . . . a spy story, a war story and a love story. A rousing, rollicking, entirely thrilling book' PATRICK RADDEN KEEFE, author of London Falling
In 1941, a young Belgian woman organised an escape line, crossing rivers and traversing mountains in order to spirit hundreds of British soldiers back to England. The Comet Line, as it became known, was the greatest escape service of the Second World War.
By that stage of the war, it was clear that the fate of Europe would be decided in the air. It took tens of thousands of pounds and many months to train fliers. Each shot-down airman who returned to Britain was worth more to the Allied war effort than the plane he flew in. Dédée's courageous work was not only heroic at an individual level, but hugely significant on a global scale.
Based on previously unseen archives, including personal letters and intelligence records, the acclaimed New Yorker writer Ed Caesar tells the epic story of one woman's courage, her commitment to keeping the flame alive during the darkest hour of European history and her team's incredible work to realise her vision.
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Specificații
ISBN-10: 1399622455
Pagini: 320
Dimensiuni: 156 x 240 mm
Editura: Orion Publishing Group
Colecția W&N
Locul publicării:London, United Kingdom
Descriere
In 1941, Andrée 'Dédée' de Jongh set out on a mission that would put her in the greatest peril: to smuggle downed allied airmen out of Nazi-occupied Europe and get them safely home. Crossing rivers, mountains and heavily guarded borders, she built an escape route spanning more than a thousand miles. Known as the Comet Line, it would become the greatest escape service of the Second World War.
At a time when the fate of Europe was being decided in the skies, every highly skilled pilot Dédée rescued was a weapon returned to the fight. But, for the agents of the Comet Line, every journey to freedom brought them closer to betrayal, arrest, torture and execution. Dédée knew the risks. She went on anyway.
This is the extraordinary story of the Comet Line - and the fearless woman who risked everything to keep it alive.
Recenzii
Dédée's story is one of limitless courage. In Ed Caesar's dramatic and moving telling, it is also a nuanced study of moral purpose, of love and loss, and the work that gives life meaning
The Comet is an extraordinary feat of narrative non-fiction; it is richly complex and profoundly moving. With clarity, style and sensitivity, Ed Caesar has crafted an unforgettable story of youthful heroism, of passion and sacrifice. I read it with pleasure, fascination, and unreserved admiration
Absolute, selfless bravery of the kind shown by the Belgian resistance fighter Andrée De Jongh is a great human mystery, and it takes a storyteller of Ed Caesar's masterly, mesmerising powers to unravel it. Dédée, as she was known, stands at the center of a novelistic cast of characters who move through the shadows of Nazi-occupied Europe, working sometimes for good, sometimes for evil, sometimes for both in turn. At once a brilliant feat of detective work and a narrative tour-de-force, The Comet is destined to become a primary document of resistance history