{"product_id":"falls-2","title":"Falls","description":"\u003cp class=\"ql-align-justify\"\u003eIn the early hours of the morning of June 3\u003csup\u003erd\u003c\/sup\u003e 1949, General Harold Alexander was alongside the quay at Dunkirk as he lifted a megaphone and called \"Is anyone there? Is anyone there?\" There was no reply. He had directed the evacuation and was the last to leave Dunkirk.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"ql-align-justify\"\u003eThe very next day Churchill stood at the dispatch and gave his \"We Shall Fight Them on The Beaches\" speech.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"ql-align-justify\"\u003eTradition tells us that the dramatic events of the evacuation of Dunkirk, in which 300,000 BEF servicemen escaped the Nazis, was a victory gained from the jaws of defeat.  Rather than telling the tale of those who escaped, Peter Smith reveals a story of those sacrificed in the rear-guard battles.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"ql-align-justify\"\u003eFor us the Battle for France was not over. In Jun-1940 there were still 41,000 British soldiers fighting the Germans alongside their French allies. Mounting a vigorous counterattack at Abbeville and then conducting a tough defence between the Somme front and the Seine, Peter was fighting a very uncertain battle for mere survival for an even more uncertain future.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"ql-align-justify\"\u003ePeter Smith tells his own story and captures the drama of those military operations and subsequent capture by Rommel''s 7\u003csup\u003eth\u003c\/sup\u003e Panzer Division (the infamous ''Ghost Division'') who moved with clandestine stealth towards their objectives.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"ql-align-justify\"\u003eNothing prepares a man for war and there can be little doubt, Peter was not prepared, even less so for a life as a POW. \"I lost my freedom that day on the June 8\u003csup\u003eth\u003c\/sup\u003e 1940 when we were told it was every man-for-himself and didn''t regain it until April 1945 when I was rescued by Americans near Halberstadt, having walked 1,600km along the Baltic coast from East Prussia.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"ql-align-justify\"\u003eSilent for nearly 80 years, Peter tells his story about his five lost years: the terrible things he saw at Thorn, Stuttoff, Stettin and Halberstadt; working on farms, Peter experienced first had the East Prussian way of life; his period in solitary confinement for ''stealing apple''; the disintegration and collapse of a whole way of life in East Prussia in the face of the Soviet invasion; and the terrible Long March, when 80,000 British POWs were forced to trek through a vicious winter westwards across Poland, alongside 2 million East German refugees as the Soviets approached.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"ql-align-justify\"\u003e\"We were all prisoners, as POWs, and refugees alike embraced a dance with death in the coldest winter for 50 years as we all trudged west, and similarly the German Army as it battled to save its population.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"ql-align-justify\"\u003ePeter''s story is also about friendship, of physical and mental resilience and of compassion for everyone who suffered. It was a difficult march undertaken in unimaginable wintery arctic conditions, where lack of food, the cold, and death were constant companions.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MediaPlace","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57320339243390,"sku":"NW9781804241226","price":15.95,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1379\/1261\/files\/9781804241226.jpg?v=1778594246","url":"https:\/\/mediaplace.com\/en-eu\/products\/falls-2","provider":"MediaPlace","version":"1.0","type":"link"}