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  • Do the Birds Still Sing in Hell?

  • A Powerful Story of Love and Survival
  • By: Horace Greasley
  • Narrated by: Leighton Pugh
  • Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (95 ratings)

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Do the Birds Still Sing in Hell? cover art

Do the Birds Still Sing in Hell?

By: Horace Greasley
Narrated by: Leighton Pugh
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Publisher's Summary

Horace 'Jim' Greasley was 20 years of age in the spring of 1939 when Adolf Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia and latterly Poland. There had been whispers and murmurs of discontent from certain quarters, and the British government began to prepare for the inevitable war.

After seven weeks training with the 2nd/5th Battalion Leicester, he found himself facing the might of the German army in a muddy field south of Cherbourg, in Northern France, with just 30 rounds of ammunition in his weapon pouch. Horace's war didn't last long. He was taken prisoner on 25th May 1940 and forced to endure a 10 week march across France and Belgium en route to Holland.

Horace survived...barely. Food was scarce; he took nourishment from dandelion leaves, small insects and occasionally a secret food package from a sympathetic villager, and drank rain water from ditches.

Many of his fellow comrades were not so fortunate. Falling by the side of the road through sheer exhaustion and malnourishment meant a bullet through the back of the head and the corpse left to rot. After a three day train journey without food and water, Horace found himself incarcerated in a prison camp in Poland. It was there he embarked on an incredible love affair with a German girl interpreting for his captors.

He experienced the sweet taste of freedom each time he escaped to see her, yet incredibly he made his way back into the camp each time, sometimes two, three times every week. Horace broke out of the camp then crept back in again under the cover of darkness after his natural urges were fulfilled. He brought food back to his fellow prisoners to supplement their meagre rations. He broke out of the camp over 200 times and towards the end of the war even managed to bring radio parts back in. The BBC news would be delivered daily to over 3,000 prisoners. This is an incredible tale of one man's adversity and defiance of the German nation.

©2019 Horace Greasley (P)2019 Bonnier Books UK

What listeners say about Do the Birds Still Sing in Hell?

Average Customer Ratings
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent book.

I really enjoyed this book. It really jerks at every emotion within my body. Alot of happiness and laughter throughout the book. The stories of great comradary and close friendships to forbidden love and the excitement of escape was brilliant. Only a very sad conclusion and a very harsh reminder of how much evil was drawn to the surface of many of people in such times. Thankyou jim!

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

moved, this book needs to be taught in schools

An amazing piece of writing and history, I wanted more, will listen to this again

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Fantastic and harrowing

This is an example of why war in the Ukraine or anywhere is tantamount to insanity. An English POW's account of 5 years as a guest of the German military during WWII, and of the methods used by Russians to exact revenge when over. This account draws on all of the emotions of the listener /reader and isnt for the faint of heart as we witness the best and worst of humanity. An important piece of history that I highly recommend. Thank you Audible. Fantastic!

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Fascinating

I really enjoyed this and it's a fascinating story. I found the graphic sex scenes a bit gratuitous though... less is more.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

A good story but awkward sex scenes

I enjoyed this recount of an Englishman’s experience as a prisoner of war. However there was distracting sexual content like a cross between a mills and boon and a human anatomy textbook. I found myself cringing at certain points. The narrators performance of the female character was pretty awful! But he tried. The other voices were ok, he did pretty well with accents I thought.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Delightful

This story had everything that a story from WW11 . Found it sensitive made me laugh and feel sad. It is unbelievable what one man can do to another. It how men in despair go about survival and courage and determination the have. loved all about this .Narration excellent Enjoyable read.L Nice love story as well

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Was an amazing testimony

while the book itself is fantastic I do think that the story should have gone a little bit further into his married life especially after the very sad ending that as someone who has mental health issues it actually left me in a very bad state...

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

A fanciful sex romp with gaping flaws to its truth

A quick Google search will identify a controversy where a claimed photo of Greasly with Stalin at a camp is revealed to be of a Soviet soldier identified by name. Ask yourself why Greasly waited till all those who he went through the war with were dead before releasing an account of his daily heroism so incredible that like true war heroes (e.g. Douglas Bader etc.) there would have been no stopping others writing about him at the time. The ghost writer has an evident porn predilection and the 'voice ' is that of a pornographer describing a fantasy with its attendant male god-like sexual prowess rather than an honest recall of loving encounters. No (secretly or otherwise) Jewish camp official would leave his exquisitely beautiful teenage daughter roaming in and around the camp to be repeatedly bedded in various locations while supposedly having English lessons. Neither would he, for months on end not notice his daughter slipping out at night to catch passenger trains running conveniently one way around 11 pm and returning round 4 am to and from a forest next to a remote POW camp to meet her lover in an also conveniently placed church deep in that forest! She never gets pregnant all this time. A loose bar discovered in a German barracks that can be taken out so as to allow a human body almost as wide as a window to exit and enter at will when barred windows would have at least 5-6 bars. The death knell was, however, when the author forgets he's writing a recount of events furnished to him by an old soldier's memory and switches at times from that narrative to the obvious 'eye of God' fiction of describing the thoughts going through the head of a German guard that is about to be killed by one of Geasly's fellow POWs. Sorry, it doesn't wash no matter how much anyone would like it to be true, and since reading the above imagination presented as fact, I didn't waste further time on it.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Only half the story was enjoyable

Oh dear - this is certainly a good story, but it can be split into two sections. The first section tells the tale of a brave British POW who pokes his finger at the Germans and does wonders for the morale of his fellow prisoners. The second section, however, should perhaps feature as an article in 'Penthouse' magazine. The love story which features throughout is so detailed in its sexual nature that I felt a bit embarrassed to listen to it. I'm far from being a prude, but the graphic descriptions of Horace and Rosa and their sexual encounters were totally unnecessary in the context of this story, and overshadowed the undoubted heroics of Horace Greasley. With half of the story being taken up with these shenanigans, I can only rate half of the story,

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1 person found this helpful

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