My German Prisons: Being the Experiences of an Officer During Two and a Half Years as a Prisoner of War

Horace Gray Gilliland was wounded in the chaos of battle near La Bassée, captured by German forces, and thrust into a nightmare of imprisonment that would last two and a half years. This is not a filtered memory or a sanitized history. Written during the war itself and published to tell the truth to families waiting for news of their captured loved ones, Gilliland's account pulls no punches about the brutal treatment, the grueling conditions, and the psychological toll of captivity. From the moment of his wounding through the long months of confinement, he documents what he witnessed with the precision of an officer and the raw honesty of a man who has nothing left to lose. This book endures because it is testimony untainted by time or political necessity. Gilliland wrote to inform, to reveal, to ensure that the world knew what prisoners actually endured. The resilience he demonstrates in the face of systematic dehumanization speaks to something fundamental about human endurance.