Dodger: The Extraordinary Story of Churchill's Cousin and the Great Escape

by Tim Carroll

"The Dodger" is the long-awaited story of Johnny Dodge, a wartime hero immortalised in the legendary Hollywood film "The Great Escape". Of all the Allied prisoners who broke out of Hermann Goring's 'escape proof' camp in the famous episode of March 1944, Johnny Dodge was the most intriguing. American-born Dodge was a cousin by marriage of Winston Churchill. When the Second World War broke out, he volunteered for the Army but was quickly captured after the debacle of Dunkirk. He became a prisoner of war and an inveterate escapologist and troublemaker - eventually becoming one of the ringleaders of the 'Great Escape'. Surviving the murderous Gestapo, he was thrown into a VIP compound of Sachsenhausen concentration camp on the orders of Heinrich Himmler - but escaped once more. After recapture, Johnny was spirited away by the SS to a meeting in Berlin with Hitler's interpreter who sent him on a clandestine mission to his cousin in Downing Street. His odyssey through the dying embers of the Third Reich to Switzerland and freedom in the company of a louche Nazi apparatchik is the last curious escapade in the story of Johnny's adventurous life. "The Dodger" draws upon Dodge's voluminous private papers, including photographs taken inside prison camps and letters home, casting revealing new light on the myth of the "Great Escape".

Genres: History, Biography, Nonfiction, World War II, Audiobook, War

272 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2012

Reviews

[Mick Meyers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed the book but Johnny himself via the author came across as a David niven type character.everybody else had a thoroughly bad time of it except the main person,either by more luck than judgement.reading between the lines he must have been an spy/agent of sorts to have gotten into so many scrapes up to and Including world war two.

[Julie Round · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book extremely interesting and a fascinating insight into a personality who played a pivotal role in the Great Escape.
Strangely , reading it coincided with a programme on TV that covered the same subject from another point of view.
The way the film did not always stick to the facts was also of interest.
Recommended.

[Davina · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's clear the author is very endeared with the subject, but I don't think it translated all that well. I got no more sense than he was a very likable fellow, but that doesn't merit a book length biography. He is very well connected, and was close to, and involved in some very well known escapes. I'm not sure what I missed, but I seemed to have missed something here. It was a very easy read, and I got insight in to early conditions at Dulag Luft, and the first commanding officer there. This books speaks more of parole than others typically do. It's not always recognized that the Luftwaffe, in particular, did allow officers on escorted walks outside camps, on their word of honor not to escape. Didn't keep them from gathering intelligence about the local terrain. Gives something to the film, the Great Escape, where they ask Steve McQueen to tell them what's outside the wire, which they knew a great deal about.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Dodger recounts the life of John "Johnny" Bigelow Dodge, a distant cousin of Sir Winston Churchill. American-born but British-bred, Dodge became a British citizen when his mother married an English aristocrat. During World War I, he served in naval infantry unit until he was wounded at Gallipoli. After his recovery, he transferred to the army and led a machine gun group. During the interwar years, Dodge traveled extensively as a business men (though he may have used that as a cover for spying) and was twice arrested in the Soviet Union. When World War II began he reactivated his commission and served on active duty until his capture at Dunkirk. Once in German hands, Dodge spent the next five years being moved from camp to camp and attempting multiple escapes, most notably the one from Stalag III featured in the movie The Great Escape. During this time, the biography also tells the story of the men he lived and traveled camp to camp with. The most significant of these seems to have been Wing Commander Harry "Wings" Melville Arbuthnot Day.

The book was highly variable in its appeal. The first half covering pre-World War II was bare bones information and dry reading. Once the point of Dodge's life in World War II was reached, it become more interesting but the focus was equally split between Dodge and his four main companions. Worth reading? Yes. Is there something better? Probably.