Publisher Description

The POW How To Escape Handbook covers everything you need to know about making a successful return to friendly territory. Beginning from the point where a combatant finds himself or herself trapped in enemy territory, the book offers useful tips and solid advice on how to evade capture and, if that fails, how to escape. Key topics include the will to survive; handling stress in captivity; escape techniques; survival in a variety of environments, including urban, rural, jungle and desert; how to forage for food; tracking and how to cover your tracks; navigation, with or without a map; and seeking recovery by friendly forces. The book also includes a number of real life accounts of POW escape from World War II (including The Great Escape story and Colditz), the Vietnam War (Dieter Dengler, with others, escaping from Laos), the Balkans, Iraq (Thomas Hamill in 2004) and Afghanistan.

Back Cover

The POW How To Escape Handbook covers everything you need to know about making a successful return to friendly territory. Beginning from the point where a combatant finds himself or herself trapped in enemy territory, the book offers useful tips and solid advice on how to evade capture and, if that fails, how to escape. Key topics include the will to survive; handling stress in captivity; escape techniques; survival in a variety of environments, including urban, rural, jungle and desert; how to forage for food; tracking and how to cover your tracks; navigation, with or without a map; and seeking recovery by friendly forces. The book also includes a number of real life accounts of POW escape from World War II (including The Great Escape story and Colditz), the Vietnam War (Dieter Dengler, with others, escaping from Laos), the Balkans, Iraq (Thomas Hamill in 2004) and Afghanistan.

Author Biography

Chris McNab is an experienced specialist in wilderness survival techniques. He has published over 20 books including How to Survive Anything, Anywhere, Special Forces Endurance Techniques, First Aid Survival Manual, Military Survival Handbook and SAS and Elite Forces Guide: Wilderness Survival.. McNab has also acted as an editorial consultant on several other survival titles. In his home country of Wales, UK, he provides instruction on wilderness hunting techniques.

Table of Contents

1. IntroductionLooks at the fundamental psychological principles of how to survive in an escape, evasion or captivity situation. 2. Hiding and EvadingHow to evade capture if you find yourself cut-off from your unit or stranded behind enemy lines. Explains techniques such as moving at night, using camouflage and concealment, and covering your tracks, and looks at countermeasures against the tactics and technologies of enemy search parties. 3. Capture and ImprisonmentExplains how you can cope with imprisonment. Through many first-hand examples, it describes techniques of resisting interrogation, handling difficult guards, staying sane and assisting in efforts for your own release. 4. Escape Advice and tips on how to escape from a variety of environments, including armed guards, vehicles, military prisons and cells. Includes information on how to choose your moment to escape, finding the weak points in prison facilities, creating diversions and how to fight your way out if necessary. Also describes how to form a coherent escape plan. 5. Survival on the RunThis chapter explains essential survival techniques needed while your are on the run, including: finding water, food from animals, food from plants, making shelters, making fire, tools and weapons, hunting and fishing, survival cooking, food preservation, surviving exposure and dehydration. 6. EmergenciesThis chapter looks at some of the unique situations that could prevent your reaching safety, and how to survive them. Includes how to survive if caught in an air strike, basic first aid procedures and what to do in nuclear/chem-bio environments. 7. RecoveryExplains the fundamentals of how to return to friendly forces. Includes advice on navigation techniques, signalling, crossing border areas and safely identifying yourself. Bibliography Index

Long Description

The POW How To Escape Handbook covers everything you need to know about making a successful return to friendly territory. Beginning from the point where a combatant finds himself or herself trapped in enemy territory, the book offers useful tips and solid advice on how to evade capture and, if that fails, how to escape. Key topics include the will to survive; handling stress in captivity; escape techniques; survival in a variety of environments, including urban, rural, jungle and desert; how to forage for food; tracking and how to cover your tracks; navigation, with or without a map; and seeking recovery by friendly forces. The book also includes a number of real life accounts of POW escape from World War II (including The Great Escape story and Colditz), the Vietnam War (Dieter Dengler, with others, escaping from Laos), the Balkans, Iraq (Thomas Hamill in 2004) and Afghanistan.

Feature

Effective techniques to avoid capture behind enemy lines

Excerpt from Book

CHAPTER 1 HIDING AND EVADING Although most modern forces instruct their personnel in what to do if they are taken prisoner, obviously it is far more advisable to avoid capture in the first place. The conditions in which soldiers are likely to fall prisoner change according to the nature of the conflict. During major set-piece battles, such as those that occurred in World War II, soldiers are most exposed to capture en masse when their unit is outmanoeuvred or outfought by the enemy. In June 1941, for example, some 287,000 Soviet soldiers became prisoners after they were encircled by the German Army Group Centre during the battle of Bialystok-Minsk, just one of several major disasters that threatened to overwhelm the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa. Although no post-1945 conflict has matched World War II for its scale of prisoners of war (POWs), wars such as the Indochina War (1945-54), Vietnam War (1963-75), Indo-Pakistan War (1971), Iran-Iraq War (1980-88) and the 1991 Gulf War have all seen substantial prisoner counts following conventional engagements.In the context of modern counter-insurgency warfare, more individual threats to liberty have arisen. Terrorist factions and insurgent groups can extract considerable publicity from the capture of one enemy soldier. On Sunday 25 June 2006, Corporal Gilad Shalit of the Armor Corps, Israel Defence Forces (IDF), was kidnapped by members of Palestinian Hamas organization, following a raid on an Israeli outpost in the southern Gaza Strip (two other IDF soldiers were killed, and three wounded). At the time of the writing (2011), Shalit is still in captivity, his vulnerable position used as a political bargaining chip in the troubled region. Some insurgent groups are far more ruthless in their approach to prisoners. Just nine days before the Shalit incident, for example, a US checkpoint in Youssifiyah, Iraq, was attacked by Islamic militants. One US soldier was killed and two others taken prisoner - Pfc Kristian Menchaca, 23, and Pfc Thomas L. Tucker, 25. Three days later, the bodies of both men were discovered, having been tortured and then beheaded.Such appalling crimes, and a litany of others, illustrate how critical kidnap awareness training has become for modern soldiers. Such training focuses on key techniques and tactical policies to reduce the chances of being taken prisoner. Basic PrecautionsFor regular military units conducting patrols, manning checkpoints or outposts, mounting small-unit raids and performing general peacekeeping duties, there are common ingredients in many hostage-taking situations:

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