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Author's Note Lost in bad weather, we crash-landed in German-occupied Albania, where we were hidden, led, and fed by Albanian partisans for sixtytwo days. I carefully kept a diary on three tiny pieces of paper, logging as best I could names oftowns, weather and walking conditions, and descriptions of those who helped us. This diary was taken away from me at our initial debriefing. It was later returned, and I added pages of details to flesh out my cryptic notes to insure that I would not forget about those who helped in our escape. Army Intelligence (G-2) told us that under no circumstances were we to talk freely about our ordeal or the escape procedures until they notified us and we were officially debriefed. When I started to write about our ordeal in Albania, it was only to provide a complete framework to connect the snippets of information my children and friends had heard from me over the years. I wrote on legal tablets, filling several with recollections, and realized , maybe for the first time, what a raw struggle for survival it had been. Although I wanted to provide a complete and accurate recounting , I wasn't interested in publication while the communist regime of Enver Hoxha was still in power in Albania. There were so many Albanians who had helped us in such a specific geographic area, and I did not want any repercussions for those who might be identified. In the late 1940s, Kostig Steffa, one of our English-speaking guides, had in fact been executed for his wartime activities. When the dictator Hoxha died in 1985, Albania slowly began to move toward democratic freedoms, and I began to think about publication as a reality. Help came from my friend, Ruth Sowash, who was determined the story be told and insisted on deciphering my scribblings, typing x Author's Note them onto neat pages. Several years and drafts later, the story was taken in hand by Evelyn Monahan and Rosemary Neidel, and their masterful reworking of my text has brought the script to its finished state. To them I again extend my sincere thanks. A debt of gratitude is owed to Captain Lloyd G. Smith, OSS, and the family of Lieutenant Gary Duffy, British SOE, whose official reports documented our situation. ...

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