Group Captain Gilbert Insall holds
a unique record: he is the only person to have both won a Victoria Cross and
escaped successfully from a German prisoner of war camp during the First World
War. The Madness of Courage describes how, when forced down by engine
damage after destroying a German fighter, Gilbert ignored intensive shelling in
order to repair his aircraft and return to base. But a few weeks later, he was
shot down and captured. And thus began a distinguished career in prison
breaking.



He tunnelled out of Heidelberg
prison camp and later hid among boxes on a horse-drawn cart to get away from
Crefeld, each time being recaptured. Then, in Stroehen, Gilbert and several
companions concealed themselves in a claustrophobically small space they had
excavated under the floor of the bathhouse. They remained there for seventeen
hours, while a fruitless search for them was carried out, and eventually
emerged and successfully reached Holland.



Meticulously told by Gilbert's
great-nephew, the critically acclaimed intelligence historian Tony Insall, The
Madness of Courage is a gripping true story about a remarkable man at a
time before the Geneva Convention was signed, when conditions for prisoners of
war were often appalling and the British War Office did little to help
prisoners escape. Instead, Gilbert's family, assisted by French intelligence,
gave him the support he needed to break out of captivity in an extraordinary
feat of bravery, resilience and ingenuity.