$19.99

ESCAPE FROM DAVAO

The Forgotten Story of the Most Daring Prison Break of the Pacific War

by John Lukacs

The  gripping story of a daring escape from a brutal Japanese prison camp in the Philippines during World War II. Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene, Texas, was named for Lt. Col. William Edwin Dyess, who grew up in Albany, Texas, and was one of the leaders of the group of 10 Americans and two Filipinos who escaped from the Davao prison camp. Three of the escapees were from Texas — Dyess, Jack Hawkins and Bob Spielman. The book tells the story from the perspectives of all 10 Americans who were captured after the fall of Bataan and Corregidor in the early months of the war, and then pulled off the only successful group escape from a Japanese POW camp. When Dyess and the other escapees accomplished their unbelievable prison break, their main objective was to get back to the U.S. and tell about the conditions under which the men still imprisoned were suffering. However, wartime censorship proved to be the biggest hurdle in getting the story out.

Paperback. 6.5×9.5, 448 pages, includes maps, notes, bibliography and index.