About the Author

J.M. Langley (Jimmy) was born in 1916. Educated at Uppingham and Trinity Hall Cambridge, he was commissioned into the Coldstream Guards in 1936. In 1940, as part of the BEF, he was severely wounded on the perimeter of Dunkirk, and taken prisoner. He escaped from a German prison hospital and eventually, via Gibraltar, reached England. Back in London, he was taken up by MI6 and seconded to MI9, the secret escape and evasion service. As Head of Operations for north-west Europe, he was responsible for bringing back about 3,000 people to England. After the war, he worked for Fisons and, later, in the book trade. He died in 1983, aged 67, of war wounds.