This is one of the world's greatest stories of adventure survival & escape. Slavomir Rawicz was a young Polish cavalry officer. On 9th November 1939 he was arrested by the Russians & after brutal interrogation in Moscow's infamous Lubyanka prison & a farce of a trial he was sentenced to 25 years' hard labour in the Gulags for 'spying'. After a three-month journey to Siberia in the depths of winter he escaped with six companions realising that to stay in the camp meant almost certain death. In June 1941 they crossed the trans-Siberian railway & headed south climbing into Tibet & finally freedom nine months later in March 1942 after travelling on foot for 4 000 miles through some of the harshest regions in the world including the Gobi Desert. By the end he weighed just five stone & 3 of the 7 had died.