Getaway

About the Book

In the spring of 1915, when the sinking of the Lusitania screamed across the headlines, 20 year old Frank Whiting dropped out of agricultural college. He left his Saskatchewan farm to the care of his father and younger brother and went - very reluctantly indeed - to the hell and horror of World War I. Serving with his university corps in the PPCLI, he survived the battles of Ypres, Sanctuary Wood, The Somme, Vimy Ridge and Passchendaele. He changed as the dreadful years dragged on, from a green kid, "innocent, trustful and believing everything my elders told me. After three years of war I was no longer innocent; I believed nothing except that God had died or didn't care. My trustfulness and dependence had given place to a well-developed ability to look after myself. I was an expert at dodging parades, guards and fatigues when out on a so-called rest. In the trenches I knew all there was to know about making the poorest of dugouts comfortable; how to rustle food and whiskey from officers and others whom I thought were getting more than their share of good things. I could tell the instant a battery or machine-gun spoke whether to hurl myself prone or walk on indifferently. To me the war was something to be endured and, if possible, survived, At twenty-three I was an old soldier in everything the term implied - and little of it was good.

When on August 27th of 1918 he was captured by the Germans, he needed all his courage and resourcefulness as he set himself to escape the stench and starvation of the prison camp. His story is one of stubborn independence and flashing humour, of audacity, a strange sympathy for the enemy soldiers he encountered and of friends and comrades lost forever.

His adventures are preserved in this book and in his battered, stained and faded diaries - testaments to human courage and the incredible folly of war.

About the Author

Lured by the promise of cheap Saskatchewan land, young Frank Whiting’s family came from England in 1904. They broke the sod and roofed their cabin with it and cleared the land of rocks and stones. By the time Frank was 20 he had his own farm and had finished his second year at Agricultural College. But it was 1915. He went to war, survived all the major Canadian battles, was captured and escaped - frequently. He returned to Britain and married his English sweetheart. At home here in Canada he farmed and freelanced for a dozen years before selling up and moving to Vancouver where he died of pneumonia in 1937.