Escape from Paris

A True Story of Love and Resistance in Wartime France

By: Stephen Harding

Narrated by: Maxwell Hamilton

This thrilling wartime adventure tells the true story of the downed American aviators who were rescued by French resistance fighters, taken to Nazi-occupied Paris, and hidden under the very noses of the Gestapo.

Escape from Paris is the true story of a small group of US aviators whose four B-17 Flying Fortresses were shot down over German-occupied France on a single, fateful day: July 14, 1943, Bastille Day. They were rescued by brave French civilians and taken to Paris for eventual escape out of France. In the French capital, where German troops walked on every street and Gestapo agents hid around every corner, the flyers met a brave Parisian resistance family living and working in the Hôtel des Invalides, a complex of buildings and military memorials, where Nazi officials had set up offices. Hidden in the complex the Americans, along with dozens of other downed Allied pilots and resistance operatives, hatched daring escape plots. The danger of discovery by the Nazis grew every day, as did an unlikely romance when one of the American airmen begins a star-crossed wartime romance with the twenty-two-year old daughter of the family sheltering him—a noir tale of war, courage and desperation in the shadows of the City of Light.

Based on official American, French, and German documents, histories, personal memoirs, and the author's interviews with several of the story's key participants, Escape from Paris crosses the traditional lines of World War II history with tense drama of air combat over Europe, the intrigue of occupied Paris, and courageous American and Allied pilots and French resistance fighters pitted against Nazi thugs. All of this set in one of the world's most beautiful and captivating cities.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2019 Stephen Harding (P)2019 Da Capo Press

Critic reviews

"Stephen Harding has done it again. With this well-researched, well-written and genuinely exciting account of American airmen shot down over Occupied France and hidden by the French Resistance in Paris, he has proved that he has an extraordinary feel for the hitherto untold stories of World War II."—Andrew Roberts, bestselling author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny

"Escape from Paris is a thrilling, brilliantly told true tale of heroism, love, and escape, set in the dark shadows of Nazi Paris. Tense and compulsively readable from beginning to end."—Alex Kershaw, bestselling author of The First Wave

"Escape from Paris has the emotional pull of a great thriller, yet it's a true and memorable account of the interlinked heroism of courageous American bomber crews downed in enemy territory and intrepid French resisters who risked everything to spirit them to safety. History of a high order rendered with verve and riveting authenticity."—Donald L. Miller, bestselling author of Masters of the Air

Escape from Paris

Plot. WWII French Resistance rescuers of US B-17 flyers, and others, throughout France..

Liked. The story is one of the incredible patriotism and courage of the every-man French citizen. This is an era of history everyone should know.

Presentation is problematic. Escape from Paris is an info-dump of facts, dates, details that are meticulously revealed throughout. The books is more a documentary, rather than a "story" - narration is as if Maxwell Hamilton was reading a textbook - the visceral horror of these events isn't well conveyed - but chilling events are there, delivered in monotone.

Written by Stephen Harding, narrated by Maxwell Hamilton, just under 9 hours of listening in unabridged format.

Recommended with the codicils above. It is a documentation of the greatest generation at their greatest in France.

Listen

This story starts off slow and picks up. I am so glad I didn't stop. God Bless all of the men and women in this story.
I usually do not like male narrator, but Maxwell was good.

More of a documentary instead of a story

Told in the third person with no dialogue, good story but no emotion by the author.