Ulrich Steinhilper was born 14 September 1918 in Stuttgart, Germany.   In 1936 after graduation from High School he passed a test for Luftwaffe flight training. He earned his Pilot's Badge and in 1939 was assigned to Jagdgeschwader fighter wing 433, where he was Adolf Galland's adjutant. .His unit, now redesignated JG-52, was assigned to protect the Ruhr region in the west during the 1939 invasion of Poland.  Steinhilper saw sporadic combat in the Battle of France flying a Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter. Beginning in August 1940, he participated in the Battle of Britain. In two months, he flew over 150 sorties against England, He  destroyed two or three Spitfires on the ground at RAF Manston on 19 August, but it was not until 19 September that he got his first aerial victory, a Spitfire. According to one source, his other four aerial victims were two Spitfires on 24 September, another on 30 September, and a Bristol Blenheim on 4 October. Steinhilper was shot down on 27 October over Canterbury 

and made a prisoner of war.

In January 1941, he was sent across the Atlantic Ocean to Canada to be interned in Camp W in Neys, Ontario, He made his first escape on 23 November, remaining at large for two days before being recaptured at Niagara Falls, Ontario.  He tried again several weeks later, managing to reach Montreal's Windsor. On his third attempt, on 18 February 1942, he and his friend Albert Waller made it to Watertown New York, before being caught. He was then transferred to Camp 20  in Gravenhurst, Ontario, where he made two further unsuccessful breakouts.^[

After the end of the war in 1945, he was returned to Germany and released in late 1946. As a post-war IBM typewriter salesman, he was an early proponent of word processing, considered by some to have either coined the phrase or even originated the concept.  

lrich Steinhilper died on 20 October 2009 at the age of 91 in his native Stuttgart.

This a first edition book in new condition that has been stored since it’s purchase shortly after publication in 1991. It has a bookplate signed by the author.

This book is an autobiography of a man who was known as one of the select few German POWs who were popularly known as DIie Ausbrecherkonige Von Kanada (the breakout kings from Canada).