From the lean days of Depression-era Texas to the thrill of being one of the few who flew Spitfires, from a death-defying crash landing in Occupied France to capture and torture by the Gestapo, imprisonment in the Great Escape camp, Stalag Luft III, and years spent becoming a serial escape artist, this is the wartime memoir of a true hero, a real-life "Cooler King." Recounted in a wonderfully honest and self-deprecating voice, William Ash's Under the Wire is a classic in the making--a riveting story of bravery by one of the last of his generation.