This novel is based on numerous personal encounters, situations and episodes experi-enced by the author himself, while living under-ground in war- torn Nazi Germany. Many of the related events actually took place in one form or another.

In 1944, at a Strasbourg Hotel the author became acquainted with an American OSS agent, who was known to have captured an American Sherman tank in Paris. This was very likely a ploy, to gain the friendship of an SS-Offi cer and a French Nazi Collaborator. The trio escaped Paris and drove the machine into German lines. Due to special circumstances, (see the author’s book, “Hell was Empty!”; Amazon, Yahoo and Barnes & Noble), the writer became a suspect for the Gestapo. It was during this time when the befriended agent revealed himself and offered his help to have the author escape his Nazi pursuers through American front lines.

The author’s eventual successful escape into Switzerland in fall of 1944 and other circumstances provided much factual material for this book.

Also quoting British Navy reports of a revolutionary Nazi U-boat, built by Blohm & Voss Shipyard in Hamburg-Germany, and its spectacular, high speedy breakout and escape through the British Channel, in spring of 1945, added further data to the story.

Consequently, a number of events and persons in the ensuing story have been taken from real life; including the tragic sinking of the German Red-Cross ship “Wilhelm Gustloff!” Nonetheless, the overall plot is entirely fiction.