Fantastic reading the book and so wish my parents were still alive as they were from Slovenia right on the Austrian border . Dad was in the local army till Germany took over and forced into their army and served in Eastern front on Artillery 105mm field cannon for 2 years till he had a chance to escape to Russian side long story he was then put into Russian forward observation and Parachuted into Hungary caught by the local police and spent last months in harsh concertation camp before being freed by US army . Thankyou for great story and my own great memories of what my parents told me . They escaped the Communism after war in 1955 with guide across Alps to Austria with 3 very young children another story and came to Australia lived in South Australia for awhile before settling in Wangaratta Vic and where my other sister and myself were born . Cheers Peter Krajnc.
@TerryAnzur
Жыл бұрын
Thank you for the kind words, Peter. What a fascinating family history. I'm hoping to go back and do at least part of the actual escape route tour for a new video.
@alidabaxter5849
Жыл бұрын
I'm amazed that I knew nothing of this astounding story - the heroism and selflessness shown is quite incredible.
@gregiles908
Жыл бұрын
As a Croweater and avid WW2 historian, I am gobsmacked that I have only heard about this escape today. Highly under stated here in Sth Australia to this day.
@TerryAnzur
Жыл бұрын
It was classified as a military secret. Nice to see Ralph and Les -- and the partisans -- finally getting the credit they deserve.
@raymondtonns2521
Жыл бұрын
what a great story! God bless them all . and now there is a crow's trail!
@simeonadams6065
Жыл бұрын
Neil Your father is an icon of the real Australian culture that seems to have been lost and not only on the young Australians. Your efforts to being this story to light and your pride in your father adds to the very important contribution to our culture that has been made by your family. Watching this video reminded me of why I feel pride in being Australian. The two books should be listed with all school as essential reading. It is only through stories such as your fathers and your efforts to give the story the attention it deserves that we can get the young people of Australia to appreciate where we have come from and that we re indeed the lucky country. (and that book that falsely rewrites the aboriginal history as it relates to when Europeans landed needs to be called out for its pathetic lies and its authors embarrassing claim to have aboriginal heritage)
@fraserknox9417
Ай бұрын
those famous words... "for you the war is over" that was something my grandpa used to tell me in his stories about being captured.... "for you British Sargent the war is over"
@richardcarter5314
Жыл бұрын
An amazing story and glad to have learnt about it. A technical comparison would have to be with the the Japanese POW breakout of the Cowra prison camp in N.S.W., Australia. 1104 prisoners broke out, 231 were killed, and 4 Australians. Although they got out of the camp they did not get out of Australia!!
@TerryAnzur
Жыл бұрын
Interesting comparison.
@neilwhisler7817
Жыл бұрын
Once again we are told of Australian's doing great work in war time, but sadly hidden away. Thay should have bottle'd the blood of these men. Absolutely bloody fantastic. LEST WE FORGET.
@bikenavbm1229
Жыл бұрын
What a cracker of a story, What a Man he must have been, A real good interview, thanks for telling us a story that should be told far and wide.
@skyislands8887
Жыл бұрын
Incredible fortitude, but the patience to wait 2 years, then escape only to return. Amazing.
@raymondferreri3151
2 жыл бұрын
Wonderful interview. I just finished a book written by Monty Halls which included a brief summary of the escape. Monty teamed with Neil as he was on the trail researching and experiencing it. I gotta now read Neil's book!!!
@TerryAnzur
Жыл бұрын
Warm welcome to all new subscribers, especially those of you in Australia. It was an honor to share the story of Neil's book about his father. He's invited me to do the hike of the Crow's Flight, and I'm hoping to make it next year. In the meantime, I hope you'll enjoy some of my other travel stories. Nice to have you all on board. And thanks for not making snarky comments about the eye makeup. :-)
@angmukiok2631
Жыл бұрын
kzitem.info/news/bejne/uKSDmISugnt9d6A
@nanagram13
Жыл бұрын
What a great story! Thank you for sharing.
@TerryAnzur
Жыл бұрын
Thanks for watching.
@markanthonymarla
Жыл бұрын
ABSOLUTLY GREAT HISTORY STORY ....
@frederickbowdler8169
Жыл бұрын
What a tough lot a great hike and brave escape.
@TerryAnzur
Жыл бұрын
Neil did a great job of telling the story.
@willfh28
2 жыл бұрын
Great interview Terry! I'll have to download the book and read it.
@anastasiahopkinson5676
Жыл бұрын
Great recounting of your Dad's Crows Flight. Thank you.
@FitLifeTravel
2 жыл бұрын
Interesting how you can learn about it up close on those hiking tours of the escape route... very fascinating.
@TerryAnzur
2 жыл бұрын
The tours are starting up again in August.
@FitLifeTravel
2 жыл бұрын
@@TerryAnzur Oh, I am sure that will be a wonderful option for folks visiting the site.
@thethirdman225
Жыл бұрын
19:00 this happened with "Danger Close" which cast Travis Fimmel as Maj. Harry Smith. Fimmel is a lot taller and much more muscular than Smith who, despite his almost bird-like appearance (by comparison) ran a very effective unit with excellent morale and high standards of training and readiness.
@TerryAnzur
Жыл бұрын
Any hot young Aussie would be fine with me.
@presidentxijinpingspoxdoct9756
Жыл бұрын
We should know about this escape in Australia. First time I have heard about it.
@cosmodog4845
Жыл бұрын
I’ll get this book asap
@williamrobinson827
Жыл бұрын
That's a fascinating story that I had never heard before. As Neil was relating his dad's experience, I was thinking about Russell Crowe playing Neil's dad. Why not have Russell Crowe playing The Crow? But alas, when they discussed the movie prospects, it was clear that Crowe's 6 foot frame would be too big. Of course, he would be too old for the part now anyway.
@GenDischarges
Жыл бұрын
Thanks Terry!
@TerryAnzur
Жыл бұрын
Thanks for watching!
@nicolemaddison2945
Жыл бұрын
Of course t was an Aussie. Brilliant
@peteranson4021
Жыл бұрын
Along similar lines is the book "Dangerous Days" by Ernest Brough, who along with another Australian and a New Zealander escaped from a POW camp in Graz, Austria. They traveled all the way to Banja Luka in Bosnia, a direct distance of nearly 300 km, again partially with the help of partisans.
@TerryAnzur
Жыл бұрын
Wow, impressive. That's a long way.
@gdaycunt2001
Жыл бұрын
Can you tell us more about this please, im trying to find somewhere to get a good read on it and can't find much on the internet on this particular topic. And here in Australia and New Zealand they don't teach us anything about how much our countries were involved in both world wars..
@TerryAnzur
Жыл бұрын
@@gdaycunt2001 Read Neil's book.
@gdaycunt2001
Жыл бұрын
@@TerryAnzur definitely going to have to get it for sure sounds like a great read thanks
@garrythompson210
Жыл бұрын
the greatest POW escape in world war 11 was the Japanese breakout from the camp at Cowra in NSW Australia, we know no one outside Australia wants to talk it
@TerryAnzur
Жыл бұрын
I'm an American and I've never heard of it. Would like to know more.
@Skipper.17
Жыл бұрын
How is this not a movie
@cindygirlification
Жыл бұрын
Great man 🙏
@jameswebb4593
Жыл бұрын
Both of the Great escapes share a common fact . No Americans took part .
@jameswebb4593
Жыл бұрын
On google there is Les Laws account of the escape , and in his version it was he ( Laws ) that pelanned and organized the whole thing , but in essence the two versions coincide.
@TerryAnzur
Жыл бұрын
@@jameswebb4593 Les Laws was British, he and Ralph were mates who planned the escape together, so not surprising that they both wrote accounts of it. I don't think any of the escapees were Americans, but there was a US intelligence officer working undercover with the partisans who played a role in organizing the Freedom trail. Maybe Neil can confirm this, but it's in the book.
@TerryAnzur
Жыл бұрын
@Kevin Verduci Perhaps the involvement of US intelligence was part of the reason why the story of the Greatest Escape was classified during the Cold War.
@donaldhoult7713
Жыл бұрын
@kevinverduci6284 The USA saved themselves following the declaration of war upon them by Germany. Without the British and Commonwealth heroes who won the Battle of Britain the USA would have had nowhere from which to fight their own war. Germany would have had a free hand to develop the atom bomb and USA would have lost to both Germany and Japan: thus losing their own ' empire ' and never becoming a superpower. It was the British and Commonwealth which saved the USA.
@SoggySoxSaga
Жыл бұрын
@@donaldhoult7713 revised history, i love it. You can spin it to your agenda! Way cool
@janrobertbos
Жыл бұрын
......woooooow!!!
@SuperLeica1
Жыл бұрын
When reality beats fiction?
@stevep2430
Жыл бұрын
First time I have had heard of this but what puzzles me is after the war had finished, why it had to be kept a secret. There would not of been any lives in danger after the Nazi's had bee defeated. No military reasons either.
@TerryAnzur
Жыл бұрын
The Cold War. Yugoslavia was behind the iron curtain.
@tedgorsline6318
Жыл бұрын
Perhaps the greatest escaper ever was the Sudetendeutcher Odo Wiilscher from the German army's Brandenburg Division. Odo helped Otto Skorzeny rescue Mussolini, the greatest commando operation of WW2. He was captured 8 times by the allies and escaped every time. The last time he got captured was at El Alamein where he got so much sharpnel in his eyes that he went blind. It took six months for the sharpnel to work out of his eyes. Once he could see again he escaped. The allies could not find him after the war ended. He hid out for three months and then one day showed up at his wife's home.
@TerryAnzur
Жыл бұрын
I'm so impressed by the historical knowledge here. Thanks for watching,
@calengr1
Жыл бұрын
5:30 black market for food
@stevand351
7 ай бұрын
The greatest escape of 500 was in Serbia by the Serbian Chetniks. Check out the book Forgotten 500
@TerryAnzur
7 ай бұрын
Wow, I didn't know that. Thanks.
@kilcar
Жыл бұрын
When you contrast this man's experience as a PW with that of German PW held under the Brits and Americans: German, Italian and Axis PWs had Three square meals a day, Medical and dental treatment, recreation, and all that was required was farm field work and the like in the United States.
@waynemcauliffe2362
Жыл бұрын
Go Aussie
@kixigvak
Жыл бұрын
Mohar Toncka, who apparently is your relative, was 11 years old when she was shot by the Germans. This from the Yugoslav monument shown in the video.
@TerryAnzur
Жыл бұрын
Family and church records show her birthday as Jan. 18 1923, so she was 21. That checks with what local residents told me about the incident. She was with partisans who took refuge in a barn that the Germans set on fire. The monument is at the site where the barn was.
@stephenchappell7512
Жыл бұрын
@@TerryAnzur of all the occupied nation's it was the Yugoslav's who gave the occupiers the hardest time (when they weren't fighting each other that is)
@domenicozagari2443
Жыл бұрын
Did the prisoners got released by the Italians?
@TerryAnzur
Жыл бұрын
I think Italy was already defeated by that point. Italy came into Slovenia first, and the Germans came in later.
@domenicozagari2443
Жыл бұрын
@@TerryAnzur Slovenia was part of Italy.
@marjankrajnc7929
Жыл бұрын
@@domenicozagari2443
@marjankrajnc7929
Жыл бұрын
@@domenicozagari2443 Wrong! Italia occupied only the western part of Slovenia with capital Ljubljana from 1941 to autumn 43. It happened in the northeast part, which was occupied by Germans! And Italy was defeated, when this story happened.
@domenicozagari2443
Жыл бұрын
@@marjankrajnc7929 All the coastal towns where of Italian People, they belonged to Venice.
@glennborrageiro6257
Жыл бұрын
With hindsight it would have been better to leave the Russians behind.
@TerryAnzur
Жыл бұрын
I think the Russian POWs were held in a separate camp and were being starved to death by the Germans. Neil wrote that Ralph was ordered to bury some of the bodies as a punishment duty. I don't think they were part of the escape.
@gregiles908
Жыл бұрын
Until you use your brains and realise most of them were Ukrainians.
@wanazami7667
5 ай бұрын
She’s too loud. Mike mixing not good.
@TerryAnzur
5 ай бұрын
Thanks for your comment. I did this interview from Slovenia on a laptop computer with Neil in Australia, and mike mixing is not really an option on zoom. I wanted to help get the word out about the book and hope to collaborate with Neil on a more complete and better video in the near future.
@thogevoll
Жыл бұрын
I don't know what you've done with your eye makeup but it's certainly not very attractive.
@TerryAnzur
Жыл бұрын
Hey, Tom, you're right. My eyes looked fine when we did the interview, but the recording on Zoom added this weird effect. I almost didn't post the interview because it looks awful. However, getting the story out there to promote Neil's excellent book was more important than my vanity, so I posted it anyway. Thanks for noticing. Maybe some technical person out there can explain to me what happened. I was on TV in the US for 30 years and never looked like this!
@domburton
Жыл бұрын
Bloody hell Tom. Give it a break.
@kansasross
Жыл бұрын
Why was the tale kept secret? This one statement casts a great shadow on the veracity of story. We have in the US a huge amount of men who claim to be US Navy Seals. They have great stories to tell, and when asked to provide proof of their service, they say they cannot, it is top secret. The main job of the Seals were to landing beaches of mines. Later they did many other tasks not one was a secret. I've not read the book reviewed here but this secrecy business makes me doubt it automatically.
@TerryAnzur
Жыл бұрын
As I've said in other replies here, you need to keep in mind that Yugoslavia was behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. Even though Tito practiced a softer type of communism, they were on the opposite team. US or British intelligence may have needed to preserve details of the "freedom corridor" in case they needed to get assets out of there, etc. Plenty of evidence to back up the story, just read the book.
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