John H. Noble was born in 1923 in Detroit, Michigan. He and his family lived in Germany during the Second World War, surviving the bombing of Dresden. In 1945, John was arrested by occupying Soviet forces and imprisoned in a former concentration camp for 5 years, before being sentenced to a further 15 years and transferred to the Soviet Gulag system. He was finally released in 1955, later writing 4 books about his experiences.