Escape or Die by Paul Brickhill

Author:Paul Brickhill [Brickhill, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780330020985
Amazon: 0330020986
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 1970-11-14T02:00:00+00:00

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In Switzerland, under British care, Snell had both arms operated on to repair some of the deep-seated damage from his wounds, and after a long convalescence was repatriated to England on the liberation of France. He was decorated with the D.S.O.for his escape (and his activities during it). Before the war was over he was fit enough to insist on flying again; he joined No. 504., the first Meteor squadron, and became one of the first of the few to fly and become operational on jets. After the war he went back to hospital for further major operations on both arms (he still suffers from the effects of his wounds). The R.A.F. then flew him over to Italy to thank and repay partisans for the help they had given to escaping British prisoners. In Modena he found again Mario Lugli, whose name will never be forgotten locally; the Germans had caught him just after Snell and Lewis had left. They tortured him for a long time but he would not talk. Then they were going to shoot him, but he feigned insanity till they threw him out of the gaol in disgust (he immediately went off to the hills and joined another partisan band). Snell found Lugli busy organising a Boys’ Town to look after orphans, especially orphans of Resistance fighters who had lost their lives. He was dedicating the home to the memory of Don Monari, the priest. The Germans had caught Don Monari also; stripped him, lashed him with barbed wire to the front of a lorry and driven him over the mountains. He was never heard of again. It was the Fascists who had caught the shopkeeper Anderlini. They tortured him for some days and when he still refused to betray the others, shot him against a wall near Modena. The girl Anna, Snell found in bed with a new-born baby, and a proud young husband standing by. He felt that such aid and thanks as he could give them were strikingly inadequate.

Back in England, Snell left the R.A.F. to become an actor and has worked since with several repertory companies and theatre clubs and in touring plays, including a year with the very successful ” Worm’s Eye View.” He has also worked in television and films, playing a wide range of roles from eighteen-year-olds to eighty-year-olds. He has also become godfather to Lewis’s younger son, Nicholas. Still a bachelor, Snell likes playing the piano by ear and composing music: also owning and driving fast sports cars, the latest being a Lagonda Special.

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