Mark Zaccaria, son of the man who lived this story

As a youngster I always knew that my father had served in World War II. It seemed like everybody else's dad had, too. By the time I was 10 or 11 I also knew he'd been captured and held as a POW. I got that from the occasional jabs his younger brother, Tony, would take at him as being the family's Jailbird. It wasn't until much later that I realized that this was no joke, though.

My father never spoke much about his wartime captivity, even when pressed. In fact it wasn't until 1984 that I got him to sit down with me for the series of detailed interviews that serve as the source documentation for this book. Even four decades later he still found it hard to do. I practically had to pitch the project concept to him and sell him on leaving some kind or record of these events for posterity.

His War Record