Escape, Survive - or Die (Hardback)

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Telegraph and Argus - January 22, 2026

5.0 out of 5 stars - A must read book

A perfect travel companion. A series of inspiring stories. Humanity triumphing over horror and adversity.

A book that that should make us not only remember the not to distant past but appreciate the period of peace and prosperity that most of the western world now enjoys.

Peter Forster-Dean - Amazon UK

As featured in

The Redcliffe Guide - December 2025

Following on from his 2020 work Airmen’s Incredible Escapes: Accounts of Survival in the Second World War, Bryn Evans has followed up with a second volume on a similar theme, but this time on a much broader canvas. On this journey he leads the reader from Dunkirk 1941, through air battles over Malta in 1942/43, Berlin 1943 and Nuremburg 1944, PoW camps in Derna and Italy 1943-44, hunting U-boats in the Atlantic 1943-44, and to fighting off German attacks on Arctic convoys 1942-44. His focus then switches with two chapters on the Malaya campaign of 1941-42, escape from Corregidor in the Philippines in 1942, and the defence of Milne Bay in 1942 before returning to cover Singapore under the Japanese, the Burma-Thailand railway and, finally, liberation in 1945.

The characters in Bryn’s chapters are all involved in life and death battles. Some do not survive; others do but are plunged into a subsequent struggle to cope with the conditions of captivity or to confront and prevail over the elements, as in bobbing around in a life raft in the Arctic Ocean for four days. There are also remarkable escapes; my prize goes to the four British airmen captured by the Italians who hi-jacked the aircraft taking them to captivity and flew it to Malta – without being shot down by the British defences!

But most of the episodes concern people dealing with the issues of life or death in their daily employment, be that in a bomber attacking targets in Germany, in infantry formations facing frontal assault by the enemy, or in ships patrolling or escorting in contested waters. There are always more fighters and flak to be contended with, tanks when you are armed with rifles, and more submarines with torpedoes just as effective against warships as merchant vessels. A few involve civilians, mostly not required to risk their lives in combat but nevertheless at the beck and call of the enemy and whatever that might entail. We forget that although PoW stories of the Burma-Thailand railway abound, the Japanese rounded up hundreds of thousands of Southeast Asian civilians to work and die on this project.

Bryn concludes his final chapter with the observation that ‘The survivors, a few of whose stories have been told in this book, like millions of others, stared down the forces of evil and, with a combination of resilience , stoicism, belief and some good fortune, returned to a new life and so achieved their personal and ultimate triumph over man’s inhumanity to man’. Just so. His stories make for sombre but rewarding reading, attesting to the strength of the human spirit faced with seemingly impossible odds.

Captain Ian Pfenngwerth of the Royal Australian Navy

I am really looking forward to reading it. Dad would be thrilled to see his story reworded so very well.

You have written so much and with such dedication! There must be a huge number of people so very appreciative of your efforts. I know that I certainly am one of them.

Sue Templeman

On behalf of our families, I would like to thank you for giving us the opportunity of our parent's war time story being published in your latest book 'Escape Survive or Die'.

Never dreaming that it would come to this for all the world to read, on how the men survived on land sea and air, is unbelievable. The treatments and torture and conditions that they had to endure is amazing that anyone of them survived.

We owe so many so much that during that time in history they should never be forgotten.

Thank you for bringing to light their heroic stories, and the fascinating writings of your book.

Carol Payne (nee Durston ) Daughter.