We Die Alone: A WWII Epic of Escape and Endurance

This book was recommended to me by another American I ran into during my trip to Norway. It is an incredible story of survival - the will to live, the risks taken by those determined to help, and just simply luck. Knowing this was not fiction, but a real person's journey, made it all the more amazing to me. The author tells it like it is - without being sensational or boastful - so feels little more like a documentary.

I have been listening to survival stories and found this one to be one of the best.

I just finished Unbroken, an exceptional audio book. We Die Alone was a fitting sequel. Despite my own life's challenges, I am amazed by the resilience and inner drive-strength of some people beyond anything anyone can dream up. And sadly, they make me think of how pathetic some people are, hearing them whine about a 10 minute wait or that their dinner bread is not warm enough, all the while never giving a thought about those who risk their lives and minds for others and their countries. At times I had some challenges figuring out the landscape of the book, even having spent much time in Scandinavia and having been to the fjords, but no matter, Google Earth helped me out :-)

A truly heroic story. I found that I didn't want to shut my player off until the story was finished; so that's what I did. It is good to remind ourselves of the courage people can show in trying times.

Somewhere I was recommended this story as a good read. Since I am a fan of real-life survival stories that included “The Log Walk”, “Unbroken”, and “Lost in Shangri-La”, this book seemed a real good choice. I was not disappointed at all as this is an extremely harrowing and arduous tale with an ultimate happy ending. Man has an incredible will to live through the most harrowing of experiences and this is a tale of the extreme in every sense. Also, this is a story of Norway in WWII in which only small fragments of information exist. This adds to the allure of this incredible story.

Id compare this with The Longest Walk, and The Endurance. Both detail the incredible limits of human endurance under extreme circumstance for survival.

Having been through hardships of my own, stories like these are very encouraging and inspiring. You can never give up on hope. Thoroughly enjoyed this book!

Wow! How much can one man endure? Find out by reading this story. I love survival stories and have read many, including Unbroken (which I loved). The absolute solitude that Jan endured in this book is more than I think I could. A modern rewrite and performance of this story would bring it up a star I think.

Spent a lot of time discussing the weather conditions and not enough time connecting the dots. Like when the end of the story came so suddenly. Left us guessing whether or not they made it over the lake safe and sound. Also the patrol showing up and without contacting them starting shooting from a great distance.Some of the points (which he pointed out before hand) were found to be unbelieveable. The conditions in which he went through were hard to fully understand since details were left out (like when he was in the 4' hole and had frozen ground all around him and could not move) how did he deal with body waste?When they carried him over the mountains only to take him back without proper equipment in todays world one would have found a place to leave him safe rather then take him back over the mountains. That in it self was totally unbelieveable and then to leave him for weeks because of a snow storm not being able to get back to him leaving him in a hole with no food seem out of place since they were able to carry him over and back climbing 3000 feet both times in a snow storm!! Seems like the story had some issues with a number of us and the details were not correct.

The story / mission was bound to fail given the conditions of the area but the most disapponitment is in the Title "We Die Alone"It would indicate that he would have died alone which we know is not the caseThe movie that was made on this story is titled " Nine Lives" and was up for an award.Given the details shared "Nine Lives" is more fitting.

maybe

do not know

Its to bad that there was not more details of the mission and the lay out of the country side along with greater details of the weather of the region. This with how the Germans invaded the country and why they were so hell bent on finding one man. After all what could one man acomplish against the odds he was facing.Where was his support form England and what did they do for him upon his return?The story was could have been expanded to give readers a chance to fully get into the mission and why it was so important that they send in a team to try and accomplish it against all odds of failure starying them down.