This book describes the design, manufacture, covert shipment and use of
the many ingenious evasion and escape devices provided to Allied troops
during WWII. Following the fall of mainland Europe, hostile Allied
actions against land-based Axis forces were generally limited to air
attacks. However, as the numbers of those attacks increased, the number
of aircraft and crews failing to return grew alarmingly: something
needed to be done to provide these air crews with aids to enable them to
evade to safe territory or escape captivity, or losses of irreplaceable
crews would become critical. Britain's MI-9 and U.S. MIS-X organizations
were formed solely to support evaders and prisoners of war in occupied
territories. They developed a wide variety of evasion and escape devices
that were given to Allied Forces prior to operations in hostile
territory or delivered clandestinely to POWs. It worked: the aids
facilitated the return of thousands of men to their units.