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A long walk home via the Gobi desert
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Message 1.Â
Posted by bandick (U14360315) on Thursday, 25th March 2010
I’ve just re-read Airey Neave’s account of his escape from Colditz, having first read it back in the early 60’s.
Somewhere over the years my memory has let me down, as I’d had it in my mind that his escape route took him several months and many thousands of miles, eventually getting home after trekking across the Gobi desert… however, there was no mention of the Gobi crossing in his book, and I fear I must be confusing perhaps two escape stories…
Did any other Colditz escapers cross the Gobi, or maybe any of the ‘great escapers’ get home via the Gobi… I’d dearly like to read what must be the ‘other’ book now, but have no title or author to go on... any suggestions.
Kind regards… bandick… -
Message 2
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Thursday, 25th March 2010
hello bandrick
fascinating question.
To cross the Gobi desert would essentially mean going from Russia to China (or vice-versa). It would, therefore, suggest that the story in question took place while Russia was hostile and China was friendly or (again) vice-versa.
During the Second World War for Soviet Russia to have been considered hostile and China to have been considered friendly would suggest that the prisoner(s) in question were Axis POWs and were travelling to the (for them) friendly, Japanese-occupied China or else to Manchukuo.
Either that or else it could have been Allied POWs of the Japanese travelling in the opposite direction to reach the Soviet Union.
Another possibility is that it is a story from the era of the First World War. Following that war some former POWs in Russia did indeed return home 'the long way round'. For example the evacuation in 1920 of the former Hapsburg soldiers comprising the Czech Legion, along the Siberian-Pacific Railway, sailing from Vladivostok and then back home via America would be a case in point. -
Message 3
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Thursday, 25th March 2010
bandick,
I think that you mix it all with Slamovir Rawicz's book: "The long walk" I have it now in Dutch translation in my hand (De barre vlucht (the barren(flight?)escape)). Read it some fifty years ago and still remember something from the book because it was that thrilling and well written.
And this escape was through the Gobi desert, but now seems it fiction, altough some other Pole now in 2009 said that it in fact was real but that it was his! escape...
Another escape, which has more backing of a real event was another book that I read:
"So weit die Füsse tragen" (as far the feet are bearing) from the journalist Josef Martin Bauer, who tells the real history of the German soldier, Clemens Forell (name changed for privacy reasons), who escapes from Siberia taking three years and over 14208 kilometer. If I recall it well, it was over Mongolia and not the Gobi desert, but I will check it in the local library next week.
I found it also a marvellous book and am afraid to see one of the two films made about the book because as mostly I find the book much better than the film...I think it is always better to see first the film and then read the book
...
If someone understands German: the best comments I read about the book are from Amazon Germany
If you type in Google: "so weit die füsse tragen" "josef m bauer" amazon
it is the first window first entry...at least on my computer...
Kind regards,
Paul. -
Message 4
Posted by Spruggles (U13892773) on Friday, 26th March 2010
bandick,
The book you refer to was issued in English as 'As far as my feet will carry me,' and you are correct about the contents.
I was informed some months ago that the the other book, 'The long Walk, as good a read as it is was in fact plagiarised by Rawicz and can not be relied upon. -
Message 5
Posted by LairigGhru (U14051689) on Friday, 26th March 2010
As indicated in msg 3 & msg 4, the book title is:
'As Far as My Feet Will Carry Me' by Josef M. Bauer. "The extraordinary true story of one man's escape from a Siberian labour camp and his 3-year trek to freedom". -
Message 6
Posted by bandick (U14360315) on Friday, 26th March 2010
³Õ¾±³ú³ú²¹â€¦
thanks for your comments… it seems you’ve put quite a bit of thought into this, but unfortunately I’m at a complete loss. I read the book back in the early 60s, when I must still have been at school… I’m pretty sure it was one of those books that happened to take the fancy of the teacher, and he made us all read it. It was, and still is one hell of a good read.
It’s just that I was always felt so sure he (Airey Neave) escaped via the Gobi… after a monumental display of courage and endurance… it’s the reason why I chose to read his book again.
From what you say though, along with Paul, Spruggles and LairigGhru… (so many thanks to all of you) it’s pretty obvious I have made a serious blunder. I should have taken note of the little messages teacher used to scribble in my text books… and it was always in red ink…‘Could try harder!’… And ‘needs to pay more attention!’ being just a couple.
I shall look forwards to getting this book from the library… I will pay more attention this time.
Kind regards bandick… -
Message 7
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Sunday, 28th March 2010
My father bought Rawicz' book when it first came out and Rawicz himself came to my school, as he lived locally, in the mid-60s to give a talk on his escape. whether or not it was embroidered or a fantasy he certainly seemed convincing. For Neave to have escaped from southern Germany back to Britain via the Gobi Desert certainly would have been going "the long way round!". Didn't he end up in Gibraltar?
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Message 8
Posted by Spruggles (U13892773) on Tuesday, 30th March 2010
Alan D,
The one thing that sticks in my mind about Rawicz was his supposed encounter with the Yetis. -
Message 9
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Tuesday, 30th March 2010
Yes, an occupational hazard for anyone travelling through the Gobi! What does ring true in Rawicz' memoir is his treatment at the hands of the Soviets. This coincides with Solzhenitsyn's autobiography and the recollections of many others, Russian and non-Russian alike, who had the misfortune to fall into their grip.
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Message 10
Posted by bandick (U14360315) on Wednesday, 14th April 2010
Bandick would like to thank all those of you that have kindly replied to my postings… but I’m now living in an area where a reliable internet connection seems almost impossible.
I’ve a feeling this new cottage may have been a disused converted nuclear fallout bunker… not the barn conversion they advertised… or the walls maybe lined with lead, as I can’t get my telly to work out here… I can’t get a signal on my mobile phone either… and my watch has stopped working for reasons known only to itself.
In despair for news from the outside, I’ve just bought a new digital radios and that doesn’t work out here either.
However, I have just discovered since now the wind has changed direction, I can get the internet… but only when there’s an ‘R’ in the month and only if I stand on one leg balancing on the back of the armchair while I’ve got my big toe stuck up the cold water tap…, not easy when you walk with crutches.
But with my tongue wrapped around the light socket… and somehow managing to stretch my tonsils and vocal chords around the tune of ‘Ma, He’s Makin’ Eyes at Me’… then there’s about a one in zero chance of me getting an internet connection…
methinks I may start to keep pigeons… they’d be a more reliable method of communicating with the outside world and that thing they call civilisation.
Other than that, things are fine… apart from me going into hospital again where the future is not orange… but bleak.
Ah, the hospital car cometh to take me away…
I also apologise for any
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