Conscript Heroes

Paperback 228 pages ISBN 9780952870876 Author: Peter Scott Janes Editor: Keith Janes Price £12.00 (price includes delivery worldwide) (this title is available as part of a promotion. See our special promotions page for details) Publication date 30 June 2004

Synopsis

Thousands of soldiers were captured at St Valery-en-Caux on 12 June 1940 and many subsequently escaped during the long march to Germany. Hundreds of these escapers were hidden in the Pas de Calais for weeks or even months, and scores were brought home by the Pat O'Leary escape line. A few have written about their adventures but only one man's diary account of everything that happened from his arrival in France in April 1940 until his return to England in 1942 survives today.

6145479 Pte Peter Scott Janes had been in the army less than five months when he was sent to France. Within weeks he was taken prisoner at St Valery. Twelve days later he was rescued by two young French girls and for the next sixteen months he lived a clandestine life among the ordinary people of the Pas de Calais. Finally, in September 1941, he joined a party being taken south to Marseille by "the Organisation". One of his guides was an Englishman named Harold Cole.

Peter's son, Keith Janes, has combined his father's diaries with other supporting documents to write Conscript Heroes.