Eleven months to freedom

German midshipman Erich Killinger was captured by Russia at the start of World War I. Killinger escaped the Russian POW train in Siberia, fled to China, and passed through a series of German consulates and safe houses to Shanghai. Given fake identity papers, Killinger traveled in style by ship and rail from Shanghai to Skien, Norway, via the United States. He arrived back in Germany on March 6, 1916--eleven months after being captured.