He thought that he was one of the first captive pilots in Laos, but he wasn't. A personal memoir from one of the few men who survived captivity in Laos.
In the item description they stated it had an "author's signature". The signature was clearly a stamp that was printed on the book and not a real signature.
This is a first hand account of Mr. Dengler's experience as a POW during the Viet Nam war.
If you've watched the movie "Rescue Dawn" starring Christian Bale, then this book is a must. It's an amazing story of survival and covers an aspect of the Vietnam War, the incursion and air raids into Laos,that along with the bombing of Cambodia, does not get much coverage in either books or films.
The stories of the brave Americans, most of them military pilots, who were captured and tortured in the North Vietnamese prisons are among the most harrowing and compelling sagas in the history of war. The brutality of the guards, the primitive conditions of existence surrounded by concrete and filth, the dysentery, the untreated traumas induced by the pilots' high-speed ejections from their airplanes or from the villagers who found and attacked them before they reached Hanoi.
It is a compelling well written story. This book has touched me deeply for their pain, suffering, and inspiring will to live.
This is the real story of Dieter Dengler's experiences in Laos. When compared to the movie RESCUE DAWN, it becomes obvious that the movie is a lot closer to the truth than it's critics advocate.
I finished this book on Memorial Day 2008. It is still relevant to our position of freedom and life.
Escape From Laos is truly an amazing tale of survival. Having a first hand perspective like no one else has, Dengler tells this story with almost no emotion, describing each terrible situation without shying away from the reality or overdramatizing.
Best book I read in 2007 and I'm squeamish about war narratives. Riveting, astounding, a profile of courage and mental agility.
On February 1, 1966 the American pilot Dieter Dengler (1938-2001) took enemy fire and crash-landed his plane in Laos while on a secret mission. After surviving in the jungle on his own he was captured, tortured (hung upside down with an ant nest around his neck, submerged in a well, dragged by an ox through a village), then taken on a three-week jungle trek to a Pathet Lao prison camp called Par Kung.
Mine will be the eleventh review of this book and consistent with my reviewing colleagues, I too give this masterpiece a 5-star rating. So, Dieter, wherever you are, you are 11 for 11.
Having already heard this account of the horrors encountered by Dieter many years ago and once again last spring, the book is just as the author tells it in person, full of viciousness by his tormentors, the amazing trek through the jungle, and the brilliance of this prisoner's mind, despite the odds against him, in having studied his captors' environmental adaptation and using what he learned to enable his own against-all-odds fight to live. This man practised survival under all circumstances during his entire life and possessed an uncanny ability to recognize danger even before it materialized.
The documentary about Dieter Dengler is really good, too. It is called,"Little Dieter Needs To Fly".
