FORCED MARCH TO FREEDOM: AN ILLUSTRATED DIARY OF TWO FORCED MARCHES AND THE INTERVAL BETWEEN JANUARY TO MAY 1945. Buckham, Robert. Stittsville (Ont.), Canada's Wings, c1984. 98pp, cloth, $11.95, ISBN 0-920002-25-0. CIP Grades 9 and up Reviewed by Alfred F. Greenwood Volume 13 Number 2 1985 March In January of 1945, the advancing Allied armies forced the Germans to relocate the prisoners of war housed in Stalag Luft III, Sagan, Germany. Among the several thousand personnel involved (all Allied aircrew) was Robert Buckham, a pilot of 428 squadron, Royal Canadian Air Force, who had been shot down in 1943. During the forced marches to a new camp, often in sub zero weather, Flight Lieutenant Buckham, who had been a graphic artist before enlisting, kept an illustrated diary. Forced March to Freedom is the abridged reproduction of that diary, with 54 line drawings and 2 maps. The low-key text gives a dispassionate view of the march. It runs the gamut of human conditions, through sickness, despair, death, charity, kindness, hope and survival; in the author's words, "the subjective truth of the moment." The excellent line drawings show people, events, locations and implements that took the artist's eye. As the drawings of explorers and pioneers enrich so much of our early history, so do the author's sketches point up the day to day existence of prisoners on the march. Forced March to Freedom is definitely required for the WW II shelf and recommended for school and art libraries. Robert Buckham continues to work and paint in Vancouver. A selection of his works is now in the collection of the War Museum in Ottawa. Alfred F. Greenwood, Victoria, B.C.