Long March Research Resources

Discovering More About ​The Long March

Books, Accounts by POWs, Videos/DVDs, Websites

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​Taking the Long Way Home: The Long March of 1945

​​An interactive map, produced by Dave Lovell and Ian Bowley, of the routes taken by many of the POWs on the Long March of January to May 1945, as part of the commemorations marking 75 years ​since the liberation and return home of POWs.

Click HERE to view the map story

Click HERE to access a table of place names that POWs stopped in or passed through.

The End of the Long March in 1945 and the Liberation in Bavaria

by Rainer Ehm (with his kind permission)

Pages 101 to 146 in this yearbook (in German) © Copyright by Archiwum Państwowe w Katowicach

Summary End Of The Long March In 1945 And The Liberation In Bavaria (in English, German and Polish)

Mariaort Bridge Casualties 16 4 1945

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​Books

Captivity in British Uniforms

by Anna Wickiewicz

​of the Polish Central Prisoner of War Museum
Chapter VII of this book is about the March and its background.
Click here for information about buying this book

The Long March In Their Own Words compiled by Philip Baker

Experiences related by Prisoners of War evacuated from Stalag VIIIB / 344 Lamsdorf
and its Working Parties near the end of the  Second World War.
Click here to buy this book now

The Last Escape: The Untold Story of Allied Prisoners of War in Europe 1944-45

by John Nichol and Tony Rennell

The most informative source of information available about the Long March of 1945.

As the Second World War approached its end, thousands of soldiers from the United Kingdom, other Commonwealth countries and the USA, languished in German POW camps. With the Soviet Army closing in from the east and Allied troops advancing from the west, the Germans evacuated many of their camps westwards away from the Soviets. Over the next several months these prisoners were forced to walk more than 500 miles through the severest of winter conditions, and hundreds died from exhaustion, disease, and starvation. This book provides a thorough analysis of why and how this all took place, including evidence based on interviews with the POWs who survived, as well as their diaries and letters, that bring this astonishing tale of endurance and courage to life. This book is the most informative source of information available about the Long March of 1945 and is highly recommended.

Click here to buy this book now, as a paperback or as a Kindle book.

P.O.W.

Australian Prisoners of War in Hitler’s Reich

by Peter Monteath Chapter 24 of this book is about the March Click here to buy this book

John McMahon: Almost a Lifetime

The account of an RAF crewman shot down over Holland in 1943, imprisoned in Stalag VIIB and survivor of one of the Long Marches.

Winston Parker/Elaine Taylor Thomas: Saddles and Service

Winston Parker spent four harrowing years in a prisoner of war camp after being shot down in a bombing raid. However, he would rather be remembered as a Southern Alberta horseman, rancher and community builder. He shares the stories of the places he has been and the unforgettable characters he knew in his century-plus life.

Other first-hand accounts by POWs

There are many books written by former POWs  that include their own accounts of the Long March. Here is just a small selection. Click on the name of a book to buy it.

• Alec Barker: POW to Lancashire Farmer
• Jonathan Blake: The Diary of a Prisoner of War
• Len Lees: Yea though I walk …
• John McMahon: Almost a Lifetime
• Winston Parker/Elaine Taylor Thomas: Saddles and Service
• Jack A. Poolton: Destined to Survive

Click here to find other books about (or by) prisoners of war.

Click here for individual accounts of the Long March on this website.

​​Videos

The Forced March to Freedom

A Timeline World History Documentary
(1 hour 10 minutes)This Canadian documentary tells the story of this amazing test of endurance through the eyes of Robert Buckham, a bomber pilot and artist who produced countless sketches and watercolours of prison camp life, as well as one of the only chronicles of the forced march itself. Interviews with Buckham and other POWs accentuate the sketches of camp life and the march as well as the few actual photographs of the march known to exist.
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Click here to watch this video.

The Long March to Freedom

Long March To Freedom Dvd

A documentary directed by Stephen Saunders
(2 hours 45 minutes)

Synopsis Episode One – Capture

Veterans reveal the real reasons they joined the fighting forces. They tell of inadequate training, of meeting the enemy, and the shocking reality of combat and capture.

Transported under terrible conditions, they arrive at the Stalags where they now adjust to the inevitability of a life behind wire. Their war is over. They now confront hardship and despair as they face the long years of captivity.

Episode Two – Captivity

Ex-Prisoners of War tell of their time in captivity. It is a story of stark contrasts. Of everyday existence and clandestine diversions. And the terrors of forced labour. Whether planning escapes, distilling elicit booze or forced working for the enemy, hopes of freedom are raised as liberating forces are heard closing in on the camps. But instead of freedom, a final, sudden, unexpected and agonising ordeal is about to be thrust upon the already weakened prisoners.

Episode Three – Freedom

After years of captivity, Allied POW’s prepare for liberation. But the German High Command has other ideas.
In the early hours of the bitter winter of January 1945, prisoners are ordered out of their camps at gunpoint. It is the beginning of the Long March. Survivors tell harrowing stories of survival, of an aimless journey, of famine, cruelty and sudden indifferent death, seeing friends dying beside them, desperately enduring all in the fast fading hope of deliverance.

Until finally, along with those who survive, we experience the exhilaration of liberation, homecoming and the eventual return to family and the world of a hard won peace.

The memories still haunt them to this day.Click here to watch this documentary on-line (for payment)Click here to buy the DVD

Spreadsheet

Hut 18A Long March

This document was prepared by Rick Catt as part of the POW75 project 2020.

It lists information about the Royal Australian Air Force POWs who were accommodated in Hut 18A at Stalag VIIIB/344 Lamsdorf, and their participation in the Long March of 1945, and published in the book ‘The RAF POWs of Lamsdorf’.

Click here to see this document.

​Websites

Movements of Prisoners and Liberation in Germany

New Zealand Electronic Text collection, University of Wellington

Click here to read this account.

South African Prisoners of War on the Long Marches 1944-1945

by I B Greeff, The South African Military History Society

Click here to read this account.

Information about the Long March on this website

Click here to see this.

Wikipedia

Click here to read the Wikipedia account of the Long March.