Facing Fearful Odds

My father’s story of captivity, escape and resistance 1940–1945

On 22 May 1940, Rifleman Alec Jay, trainee stockbroker and anti-Fascist demonstrator, landed in Calais with his Territorial Battalion, The Queen Victoria Rifles. Four days later, the British defenders, out-numbered and outgunned by the Wehrmacht, surrendered. While the bulk of Britain’s Army was lifted off at Dunkirk, there was no evacuation for the lightly-armed survivors of the Calais garrison who fought literally to the last round.

While Alec became one of the tens of thousands ‘involuntary guests of the Third Reich’, forced to work propping up the Nazi regime, he was different in a vital respect from the vast majority. As a Jew, he found himself at the heart of a regime dedicated to extinguishing his race. He responded by becoming a fully paid-up member of the awkward squad, leading one of the few successful strikes in Nazi Germany, using his schoolboy German to demoralise civilians and staging five escape attempts. Four failed but he successfully eluded capture on the fifth attempt, joining the Czech partisans who he fought alongside during the closing weeks of the war.

Although he did not write a POW diary or memoir, Alec did bring home a slim volume of poems written during his captivity. Around these, his son, John, has reconstructed his war, drawing on numerous first-hand POW accounts and archive materials found in Britain, the Czech Republic, Poland and Russia. The result is an inspiring and compelling story of a young man who found himself ‘facing fearful odds’.

How to buy Facing Fearful Odds

Facing Fearful Odds is available in all good bookshops and through online retailers. The book can also be bought directly from Pen & Sword Books through its website at www.pen-and-sword.co.uk or by phoning 01226 734222.

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