Full 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.
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
