The Ghosts of Rome:

The Ghosts of Rome: PDF

Author: Joseph O'Connor

Publisher:

Published: 2025-02-04

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

It is 1944 and the Rome Escape Line, operated by a clandestine group known as The Choir, is smuggling more than 6,000 escapees from Nazi occupied Rome every year. Despite its successes, The Choir itself is riven with internal tensions and infighting. The organization risks falling apart, leaving thousands of escaped allies, Jews, and objectors stranded in a Rome that is ruled with vicious efficiency by the Nazis. Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty, the architect of the Escape Line and acknowledged leader of The Choir, broods inside the Vatican, seemingly paralyzed by what he sees as the intolerable risks of keeping the Escape Line in operation. One man has been given the task of definitively destroying the Escape Line. The price of failure for SS Commander Paul Hauptmann will be paid for by his wife and children, who have been escorted back to Germany under the care of the Gestapo. Hauptmann must dismantle the Escape Line or watch his family perish. Meanwhile, as he threatens to destroy Rome, he is also seduced by the city's dark, wily mysteries. Into this deliriously thrilling melee steps the Contessa Giovanna Landini, a reckless, audacious, and magnetic member of the Italian Resistance. When an unidentified airman literally falls from the sky, the Contessa Giovanna Landini and every member of the Escape Line are plunged into lethal danger. A beautifully written and expertly crafted literary novel that is bursting with action, atmosphere, and unforgettable characters, The Ghosts of Rome is the second book in Joseph O'Connor's best-selling Rome Escape Line trilogy.

The Rome Escape Line

The Rome Escape Line PDF

Author: Sam Derry

Publisher:

Published: 2023-10-21

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781738422425

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

"A brave man and a born story-teller, Sam Derry's account of how he set up the Rome Escape Line in WW2 (which smuggled thousands of Allied soldiers to safety) is a riveting read." Gavin Mortimer, author of David Stirling, The Phoney Major: The Life, Times and Truth about the Founder of the SAS. One of the most extraordinary episodes of the Second World War, this is the story of how a British officer from a quiet market town in Nottinghamshire, and with the assistance of a Vatican-based Irish Monsignor, hid an army of over 4,000 escaped POWs in and around German occupied Rome. In this authorized edition, told by Lt Col Sam Derry, having made his second getaway of the war by jumping in broad daylight from a prison train taking him from Italy to Germany, was smuggled into Rome in a cabbage cart, and then disguised as a Monsignor, into Vatican City to take command of a cloak and dagger organisation that kept thousands of men from falling into Nazi hands. Keeping one step ahead of the Gestapo, Derry's organisation survived disasters, tortures and the execution of some of its members to hand over to the Allies an army that had been fed, clothed and housed by priests and brave Italian families in and around Rome under the very noses of the enemy. When, in June 1944, Rome was about to be liberated by the Americans, Derry was the first 'Brit' to establish direct contact with the spearhead of the Allied advance, and able to radio information to arriving troops advising which route to take to avoid mined bridges. This extraordinary story is told by an ordinary man from Newark, who before the war was a plumber and who became, by the end of the war, Head of MI9. His meticulous record keeping shows the Rome Escape Line saved the lives of 1695 British, 896 South African, 429 Russian, 425 Greek, 185 American POWs and others from more than 20 countries. Only 122 escapees and evaders were re-captured. Sadly, many Italians assisting were captured and shot. "Sam Derry was the James Bond of the escape lines in Italy, working in the clandestine shadows of the Vatican to save the lives of Allied airmen and soldiers. The book shines a light on his immense courage, bravery and survival in the face of Nazi evil." Dr Helen Fry, author of MI9: A History of the Secret Service for Escape and Evasion in World War Two.

The Rome Escape Line - Scholar's Choice Edition

The Rome Escape Line - Scholar's Choice Edition PDF

Author: Sam Derry

Publisher: Scholar's Choice

Published: 2015-02-15

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 9781297032387

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

The Rome Escape Line

The Rome Escape Line PDF

Author: Sam Derry

Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing

Published: 2019-12-06

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13: 1839741163

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The Rome Escape Line, first published in 1960, is the firsthand World War II account of British Army officer Sam Derry, who, himself an escaped prisoner-of-war, remained in Rome to help other escaped POWs remain in hiding or to safely flee Italy altogether. With the help of Right Rev. Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty, an official in the Vatican's Holy Office, Derry is given the assignment of overseeing the escape operation, obtaining money, papers, food, and lodging for the escapees. Unfortunately, there were traitors and leaks to deal with, and the German response following round-ups of captured POWs was often brutal. Overall, The Rome Escape Line provides valuable insight into a remarkable operation, reported in a humble, matter-of-fact manner by a true war-hero.

Escape from Rome

Escape from Rome PDF

Author: Walter Scheidel

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2021-03-16

Total Pages: 698

ISBN-13: 0691216738

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The gripping story of how the end of the Roman Empire was the beginning of the modern world The fall of the Roman Empire has long been considered one of the greatest disasters in history. But in this groundbreaking book, Walter Scheidel argues that Rome's dramatic collapse was actually the best thing that ever happened, clearing the path for Europe's economic rise and the creation of the modern age. Ranging across the entire premodern world, Escape from Rome offers new answers to some of the biggest questions in history: Why did the Roman Empire appear? Why did nothing like it ever return to Europe? And, above all, why did Europeans come to dominate the world? In an absorbing narrative that begins with ancient Rome but stretches far beyond it, from Byzantium to China and from Genghis Khan to Napoleon, Scheidel shows how the demise of Rome and the enduring failure of empire-building on European soil launched an economic transformation that changed the continent and ultimately the world.

Warburg in Rome

Warburg in Rome PDF

Author: James Carroll

Publisher: HMH

Published: 2014-07-01

Total Pages: 383

ISBN-13: 0547738951

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

In post-WWII Italy, an American uncovers a Vatican scandal in a “thriller with deeply serious historical undertones” by a National Book Award winner (Alan Cheuse, NPR, All Things Considered). David Warburg, newly minted director of the US War Refugee Board, arrives in Rome at war’s end, determined to bring aid to the destitute European Jews streaming into the city. Marguerite d’Erasmo, a French-Italian Red Cross worker with a shadowed past, is initially Warburg’s guide—while a charismatic young American Catholic priest, Monsignor Kevin Deane, seems equally committed to aiding Italian Jews. But the city is a labyrinth of desperate fugitives: runaway Nazis, Jewish resisters, and criminal Church figures. Marguerite, caught between justice and revenge, is forced to play a double game. At the center of the maze, Warburg discovers one of history’s great scandals: the Vatican ratline, a clandestine escape route maintained by Church officials and providing scores of Nazi war criminals with secret passage to South America. Turning to American intelligence officials, he learns that the dark secret is not as secret as he thought—and that even those he trusts may betray him—in this “complex and compelling novel of the Vatican and morality during World War II” (Library Journal). Warburg in Rome has “the breathtaking pace of a thriller and the gravitas of a genuine moral center—as if John LeCarré and Graham Greene collaborated” (Mary Gordon). “A high-stakes battle between good and evil [and] a plot full of twists and turns.” —The Boston Globe “A suspenseful historical drama set in Rome at the end of WWII and centering on Vatican complicity in the flight of Nazi fugitives to Argentina.” —Publishers Weekly “Recommend this utterly engaging thriller to fans of Joseph Kanon’s The Good German and James R. Benn’s Death’s Door.” —Booklist, starred review

The Ratline

The Ratline PDF

Author: Philippe Sands

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2022-03-15

Total Pages: 449

ISBN-13: 0525562532

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

A tale of Nazi lives, mass murder, love, Cold War espionage, a mysterious death in the Vatican, and the Nazi escape route to Perón's Argentina,"the Ratline"—from the author of the internationally acclaimed, award-winning East West Street. "Hypnotic, shocking, and unputdownable." —John le Carré, internationally renowned bestselling author Baron Otto von Wächter, a lawyer, husband, and father, was also a senior SS officer and war criminal, indicted for the murder of more than a hundred thousand Poles and Jews. Although he was given a new identity and life via “the Ratline” to Argentina, the escape route taken by thousands of other Nazis, Wächter and his plan were cut short by his mysterious, shocking death in Rome. In the midst of the burgeoning Cold War, was he being recruited by the Americans or by the Soviets—or perhaps both? Or was he poisoned by one side or the other, as his son believes—or by both? With the cooperation of Wächter’s son Horst, who believes his father to have been “a good man,” award-winning author Philippe Sands draws on a trove of family correspondence to piece together Wächter’s extraordinary life before and during the war, his years evading justice, and his sudden, puzzling death. A riveting work of history, The Ratline is part historical detective story, part love story, part family memoir, and part Cold War espionage thriller.