A World War II chronicles of Jan Baalsrud's escape from Nazi-occupied arctic Norway.
If this story of espionage and survival were a novel, readers might dismiss the Shackleton-like exploits of its hero as too fantastic to be taken seriously. But respected historian David Howarth confirmed the details of Jan Baalsrud's riveting tale. It begins in the spring of 1943, with Norway occupied by the Nazis and the Allies desperate to open the northern sea lanes to Russia. Baalsrud and three compatriots plan to smuggle themselves into their homeland by boat, spend the summer recruiting and training resistance fighters, and launch a surprise attack on a German air base. But he's betrayed shortly after landfall, and a quick fight leaves Baalsrud alone and trapped on a freezing island above the Arctic Circle. He's poorly clothed (one foot is entirely bare), has a head start of only a few hundred yards on his Nazi pursuers, and leaves a trail of blood as he crosses the snow. How he avoids capture and ultimately escapes--revealing that much spoils nothing in this white-knuckle narrative--is astonishing stuff. Baalsrud's feats make the travails in Jon Krakauer's Mt. Everest classic Into Thin Air look like child's play. In an introduction, Stephen Ambrose calls We Die Alone a rare reading experience: "a book that I absolutely cannot put down until I've finished it and one that I can never forget." This amazing book will disappoint no one. --John J. Miller
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
An usual mix...:
There are so many 5-star reviews that I thought I'd add a little detail so potential readers can know more about this before diving in like I did.
The story starts out as a plan for espionage againsts Nazis. This part is brief. The main guy, Jan, ends up almost dead and staggering into a home with extreme frostbite. The interesting parts of this story are the familes that helped him, risking death to themselves. So the parts of the book where the author could interview people that helped Jan are... more info
we die alone:
i have read the book but was not happy just because is almost the same as the book ( AS FAR AS MY FEET CAN CARRY ME).
some pages were exactly the same , word by word.
it look like it was a copy of the other book( as far as my feet can carry me)
i was very sorry that i bought the book and lost interest very fast.
An amazing story.:
I first read this book when I was about eleven, over thirty years later I bought it again, and the story was just as amazing to me as an adult as it was when I was a child. Jan's story has to be read to believed.
A beautiful lesson in heroism:
The will of a Norwegian resistance during World War II, who injured will fight to survive in extreme conditions. What lesson of heroism! The victory at the end of suffering is a lesson of humanity. Great book.
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