author
John Alan Lyde Caunter
1889–1981
A British Army officer with a talent for vivid storytelling, he turned one of his most dramatic wartime experiences into 13 Days, an escape narrative drawn from his time as a prisoner in Germany during the First World War. He was also known well beyond military circles as an early shark angler off the British coast.
1 Audiobook
13 Days: The Chronicle of an Escape from a German Prison
by John Alan Lyde Caunter
About the author
Born in Somerset in 1889, John Alan Lyde Caunter built a long military career and later reached the rank of brigadier. He served in both world wars and became noted for armored warfare, with his name also attached to the desert camouflage style often called the "Caunter scheme."
As a writer, he is best remembered for 13 Days: The Chronicle of an Escape from a German Prison, published in 1918. The book grew out of his own experience as a prisoner of war in Germany and his successful escape, giving his work the immediacy of lived adventure rather than secondhand history.
Caunter also had an unusual second reputation: he was a pioneer of shark angling in Britain and wrote on that subject too, including guides for anglers in southwest England. He died in 1981, leaving behind a life that joined soldiering, memoir, and sporting curiosity in a way that still feels distinctive.