Drawing on letters home, diaries, and interviews with redoubtable survivors now into their nineties, the and even improvised daring surgical techniques to save their fellow men's lives. Men studied, attended lectures, learned languages, and sat for exams on such a scale that one camp was nicknamed The Barbed Wire University. Often the years in captivity proved a turning-point in their lives, as the new interests and skills they took out of the camp enabled them to embark on a post-war career in which they would succeed at the highest level.