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The Long Road Home

An Account of the Author’s Experiences

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The Long Road Home

By: Adrian Vincent
Narrated by: Jonathan Cowley
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About this listen

The honest account of one prisoner-of-war’s struggle to survive through five years of Nazi imprisonment. An essential book for listeners of Horace Greasley, Alistair Urquhart, and Heather Morris.

On a cold May morning in 1940, Adrian Vincent arrived in France with his battalion. His war didn’t last long. Within five days the Siege of Calais was over, and nearly all his comrades were killed, wounded or, like him, taken prisoner. After a brutal journey across the breadth of Germany, Vincent and his fellow survivors began their life in Stalag VIIIB, set to work in terrible conditions down a Polish mine. For the next five years, they waged a war not against enemy soldiers but instead versus monotony, disease, cruelty, starvation, and hopelessness.

“The most honest prisoner-of-war story I have read in the last 10 years.” (Leicester Mercury)

“Mr. Vincent has the admirable intention of entertaining the reader, and this he does very successfully. His style is deft and concise. He has a nice wit and his characters emerge as life-like and life-size figures.” (Times Literary Supplement)

“Vincent tells his story with humour, sympathy, and observation.” (The Sphere)

The Long Road Home is a remarkably truthful memoir of what it was like to be a prisoner during the Second World War. Vincent does not portray himself or his comrades as heroes, but instead what they really were: survivors.

©1956 The Estate of Adrian Vincent (P)2021 Tantor
Germany Military World War II War Imperialism
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A gritty, true life story of a prisoner of war

This book makes a refreshing change from the usual POW offerings written from the perspective of officers having jolly japes with the Germans.

This is the story of private soldiers who were forced to work in the fields, factories and coal mines and those who refused to work were severely punished. Although there are some lighter sides to the story what comes over most is the unrelenting years of labouring for long hours on short rations.

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Pretty unique story

This was a pretty unique story of people who were prisoners who did not have it so awful as you may imagine obviously not fun but the story is interesting

Some parts of the book are actually laugh out loud funny, so it’s defo worth a listen

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A missing story finally told.

In the UK at least, the usual stories of life as a POW in the second world war are all about the officers, an entitled group of the middle and upper classes whose sense of derring do and pluck seem redolent of the age of Empire and Colonialism. This story is a refreshing change. This remarkable tale begins when the author, a conscripted soldier with only a few weeks of basic training, finds himself in Calais, fixing his bayonet to his rifle and having to contemplate the prospect of killing or of being killed. But neither happens, instead he is captured and thus begins the long road to captivity in Poland, and, after 5 years, and inumerable indignities, struggles and other sufferings intermingled with a few desperately grabbed at joys, he then finds himself on a harrowing march to a Germany on the verge of defeat.
I am so glad I read this book. It is a story that the victors, in their writing of history, have chosen to largely ignore. I can only guess why that is, but if we are to remember and to never forget, then this tale of those who had no choice but to fight a war that was not of their design should be more widely known and appreciated.

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