Paul Brickhill, an Australian pilot during WWII was shot down over Tunisia and became a POW in Germany; his experiences at the camp, which not every Tom, Dick or Harry could have had were dramatized in what 1963 'break-out' drama?
"director of Fédération Française de la Couture. His life was the subject of a 2016 biography, ""The Hero Maker: A Biography of Paul Brickhill"", by Stephen Dando-Collins and ""Flying into Danger: The Paul Brickhill Story"" by John Ramsland. The following books were written by Paul Brickhill: Three books by Brickhill were made into feature films: ""The Dam Busters"" (1955), ""Reach for the Sky"" (1956), and ""The Great Escape"" (1963). ""Deadline"" became an episode of the ""Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre anthology series entitled ""War of Nerves"" that was first broadcast on January 5, 1964. Paul Brickhill Paul Chester Jerome"
"Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). His flight training commenced in March 1941 at the Number 8 Elementary Flying Training School at Narrandera, New South Wales as undertaken in Australia Under the Empire Air Training Scheme, Brickhill then undertook advanced training as a fighter pilot in Canada and the United Kingdom, before being assigned to No. 92 Squadron RAF, a unit equipped with Spitfires and part of the Desert Air Force in North Africa. On 17 March 1943, he was shot down over Tunisia and became a prisoner of war. he was flown to Italy on 23 March and then sent"
"1943 over Tunisia to become a prisoner of war. While imprisoned at Stalag Luft III, he was involved in the escape attempt. He did not take part in tunnelling but was in charge of ""stooges"", the relay teams who would alert prisoners that German search teams had entered the camp. He was originally scheduled to be an early escapee but when it was discovered he suffered from claustrophobia, he was dropped down to the bottom of the list. He later said he figured this probably saved his life. After the war, Brickhill co-wrote ""Escape to Danger"" (with Conrad Norton, and"
"it as a longer third-person narrative under the title ""The Wooden Horse"", which was filmed as ""The Wooden Horse"" in 1950. He included many details omitted in his first book, but changed his name to ""Peter Howard"", Michael Codner to ""John Clinton"" and Oliver Philpot to ""Philip Rowe"". Williams also wrote a prequel, ""The Tunnel"", an extended study of the mentalities of life as a prisoner of war. Although not an escape novel, it shows the profound urge to escape, and explores the ways that camp life affected men's emotions. Paul Brickhill was an Australian-born Spitfire pilot, shot down in"
"by train to Germany. After initially being held at the Dulag Luft at Oberursel, a Luftwaffe's central receiving and interrogation station for captured enemy airman he was sent to Stalag Luft III, in Silesia, 150 km southeast of Berlin, arriving there on 4 April 1943. Brickhill became involved with the camp's escape organisation initially as a lookout or ""stoogie"", before volunteering to work as a digger on the ""Tom"" tunnel"". However he developed claustrophobia. As a result he was eventually reassigned and was put in charge of security for the forgers. Because of his claustrophobia and the risk that he"
"was selected for the ""escape committee"" by fellow prisoners. The committee reviewed escape plans and directed escapes. Jones led the digging team on tunnel ""Harry"" used in the ""Great Escape"", chronicled in the Paul Brickhill's autobiographical book, and portrayed in the 1963 film. After his liberation in April 1945, Jones was commended for leadership among his fellow prisoners. In July 1946, Jones was assigned as an air inspector at Headquarters Air Training Command. He followed this with attendance at the Armed Forces Staff College, which he completed in 1948. During this time, the U.S. Army Air Forces was disestablished and"
"Spectrum and DOS platforms. In 2003, a new ""Great Escape"" game based on the film was released by Eidos for Xbox and PlayStation 2. Producer and writer Hideo Kojima took inspiration from ""The Great Escape"" for 1987's ""Metal Gear"". The Great Escape (book) The Great Escape is an insider's account by Australian writer Paul Brickhill of the 1944 mass escape from the German prisoner of war camp Stalag Luft III for British and Commonwealth airmen. As a prisoner in the camp, he participated in the escape plan but was debarred from the actual escape 'along with three or four others"
"in North Africa during the Second World War. A Bristol Blenheim IV, restored from a Bolingbroke IVT, appeared in the 1995 film ""Richard III"", an adaptation of Shakespeare's play directed by and starring Ian McKellen; who set the play in an imaginary 1930s England ruled by a fascist-style Monarch. A Bristol Bulldog is featured as the aeroplane crashed by Douglas Bader (Kenneth More) in the 1956 Biopic ""Reach for the Sky"" which resulted in Bader losing both legs. In the long-running British First World War comic strip ""Charley's War"", published in ""Battle Picture Weekly"" 1979–1986 and written by Pat Mills"
"war he had been too interested in flying on practice flights rather than attending to his duties. Nerney then discussed the issue with John Pudney, who was an editor at News Review. Pudney had liked Paul Brickhill's book of World War II escape attempts ""Escape to Danger"" (which he had co-authored with Conrad Norton) and was at the time attempting to turn it into a series for BBC TV. Following up Pudneys recommendation, Nerney approached Brickhill in February 1949, who jumped at the offer. As an officer and a pilot in the RAF and a proven writer and journalist Brickhill"
"""Reach for the Sky"". Some 172,000 copies were sold in the first few months alone. The initial print run of 300,000 quickly sold out, as the biography became the biggest-selling hardback in post-war Britain. The book was subsequently adapted for the screen and released in 1956 as feature film. Starring Kenneth More as Bader, it topped the box office in Britain that year. Brickhill spent the rest of his life working on several unfinished film screenplays, novels and biographies, but was never able to repeat his successes of 1949 to 1954. In 1969 he returned to live permanently in Australia."
"was shot down over Abbeville, France, in July 1942 and was a prisoner of war at German prison camp Stalag Luft III until April 1945. He wrote about his experiences in Stalag Luft III in his book ""33 Months as a POW in Stalag Luft III"". He was a manager of accumulation and hiding of supplies used in the 1944 breakout in which 76 POWs escaped. That incident was documented in the 1950 book ""The Great Escape"", and later was celebrated in the 1963 movie of the same title. After World War II, he progressed through key staff assignments with"
"1962 living on his boat ""Escaper"" in the Eastern Mediterranean with his wife Sibyl. Eric Williams (writer) Eric Williams MC (13 July 1911 – 24 December 1983) was an English writer and former Second World War RAF pilot and prisoner of war (POW) who wrote several books dealing with his escapes from prisoner-of-war camps, most famously in his 1949 novel ""The Wooden Horse"", made into a 1950 movie of the same name. RAF Flight Lieutenant Eric Williams was the navigator of a 75 Squadron Short Stirling bomber (BK620) shot down on a bombing raid over Germany on 17/18 December 1942."
"also clearly recounts the issues facing the early pilots ""taking the war to Germany"" from within what seemed an almost amateurish Bomber Command. Subsequently he flew the renowned Avro Lancaster. He quickly learned how to stay alive and rapidly grew in experience and maturity, rising from Pilot Officer to a highly decorated Wing Commander. Using Gibson’s original draft, the reprint restored elements originally omitted – such as Gibson’s views on fellow pilots and staff, air tactics and the deployment of Bomber Command. The 1954 film, ""The Dam Busters"", was based on both Gibson’s ""Enemy Coast Ahead"" and on Paul Brickhill's"
"region of Western Australia and made a forced landing. Bertram and mechanic Adolf Klausmann were rescued and hospitalised in Perth. Klausmann suffered significant long-term psychological effects from their ordeal. Books by Bertram regarding his adventures became best-sellers in Germany during 1933. In 1934, Bertram joined the Nazi Party and the SA (""Brownshirts""). Bertram's script for a drama set in an Australian gold mining town, was made into ""Frauen für Golden Hill"" (""Women for Golden Hill""), released in 1938. The World War I aviation drama ""D III 88"" (1939), also written by Bertram, was made with the support of ""Luftwaffe"" chief"
"film ""The Dam Busters"" was made based on both Gibson's ""Enemy Coast Ahead"" and on Brickhill's book. Named after the latter, the movie starred Richard Todd as Gibson and Michael Redgrave as Barnes Wallis. In 1954, Australasian Radio produced a radio dramatisation of the book in 26 half-hour episodes. The Dam Busters (book) The Dam Busters is a non-fiction book by Paul Brickhill about Royal Air Force Squadron 617 Originally commanded by Wing Commander Guy Gibson V.C. during World War II. The squadron became known as the ""Dam Busters"" because of Operation Chastise, a mission using highly specialised bombs to"
"he would deserve the same kind of fame as his fellow-Australian, Paul Brickhill (author of ""The Dam Busters"", ""Reach for the Sky"" and ""The Great Escape""), for his non-fiction accounts of fascinating and important people and actions during World War II but Southall wrote much more. From 1950 to 1962, Southall also wrote, for younger readers, adventure stories about a fictional brave pilot, 'Simon Black' — an Australian counterpart to W.E. Johns' hero 'Biggles'. Several of these ventured into science-fiction, with space flight, aliens and lost humanoid races. Southall's major, second career as author began with his move from the"
"rest centre. ""The Caine Mutiny"" (1954) starring Humphrey Bogart, Fred MacMurray and Van Johnson dealt with the military legal system during World War II. ""The Hill"" (1965) starring Sean Connery was set in a British military penal camp in North Africa during World War II. ""The Great Escape"" (1963), starring Steve McQueen, James Garner, James Coburn, Richard Attenborough, details the true-life adventures of a mixed group of Allied prisoners attempting to escape from a German Luftwaffe ""stalag"". ""Andersonville"" (1996) and ""The Andersonville Trial"" (1970), both TV movies, dealt with the conditions at Andersonville Prison and its aftermath. George C. Scott"
"for aircraft to land and pick Williams up. He later became a POW. Williams had five official victories in air combat at the time of his capture. By early 1944, Williams and another 450 Sqn officer, Flight Lieutenant Reginald (Reg) Kierath, found themselves imprisoned at ""Stalag Luft III"", near Sagan, Germany. Both men were among the 76 POWs who escaped during the famous ""Great Escape"" in March 1944. They were both re-captured and on 29 March, along with three other Australian airmen, were among 50 ""Stalag Luft III"" POWs murdered by the ""Gestapo"". A posthumous Mention in Despatches was published"
"because of a broken oil line. The race to Victoria became a war of attrition. Dutch pilot Geysendorffer's Pander S4 was destroyed in a ground collision, also at Allahabad. Australian Jimmy Woods flipped his Lockheed Vega while landing at Aleppo in Northern Syria. A bumpy arrival in Bucharest, Hungary, caused damage to the flaps of American aviatrix Jacqueline Cochran's Granville R-6H. British entrants Gilman and Baines were both killed when their Fairey Fox I crashed near Palazzo San Gervasio in Italy. Tension mounted around the world as Charles Scott and Campbell Black in their Comet and Koene Parmentier and Jan"
"made famous after the war because of Paul Brickhill's book, ""The Great Escape"", a book which was also made into a movie. In January 1945, prisoners from camps all over Germany were herded from the camps and forced to walk the length and breadth of Germany, in an effort to evade the encroaching Allied armies. On May 5, 1945, Roger and the others were turned over to the British Army not far from Bremen. Their guards surrendered and the prisoners were airlifted to Brussels. Upon his return to Canada, Roger went into the insurance business in Winnipeg. He was a"
"a Best Picture Oscar and has come to be re-evaluated by some critics. In 1984 Mel Gibson played Christian opposite Anthony Hopkins as Bligh in a film (based not upon the Nordhoff-Hall novels but on an historical work by Richard Hough) called ""The Bounty"". This latest version, which gives a far more sympathetic view of Bligh, is considered to be the closest to historical events. The 1935 version was itself not the first film account of the mutiny. In 1933 an Australian film entitled ""In the Wake of the Bounty"", with the then-unknown Errol Flynn as Fletcher Christian, was released,"
"forces. After capture he was shown, bruised, on Iraqi television. He was tortured in the Abu Ghraib prison. Nichol was released by the Iraqis at the end of the Gulf War. He remained in the RAF until March 1996. After repatriation by the Red Cross, Nichol co-authored a book, ""Tornado Down"", with John Peters, about this experience. Since 'Tornado Down', Nichol has written over ten books including five novels 'Point of Impact', 'Vanishing Point', 'Exclusion Zone', 'Stinger' and 'Decisive Measures'. His latest books provide extensive eyewitness accounts of World War II history and include 'The Last Escape' which tells the"
"raid war so you had the excitement of being in a war area without any real danger. He and seven other reporters flew bombing missions over Germany as part of ""The Writing 69th"". On one such mission to Wilhelmshaven in March 1943, the B-17 bomber formation in which he and reporters Walter Cronkite and Gladwyn Hill were flying suffered heavy losses to enemy fighters. He also covered the fighting in North Africa, Italy, and southern France. When Germany surrendered, he went to the Pacific and was one of the first reporters to enter Hiroshima after the atomic bombing. For the"
"RAF who had been responsible for 617 Squadron during World War II and inquiring about the status of the proposed history offered his services if they were still required. His offer was accepted. Brickhill approached Evans Brothers about an advance for the Dam Busters book, but they were not interested in any advance until they had seen a manuscript. Already working on ""The Great Escape"" Brickhill also commenced simultaneous work on ""The Dam Busters"". While visiting Germany as part of his research for ""The Great Escape"", Brickhill took the opportunity to visit the Ruhr valley to see the dams attacked"
"Lake District, at No 1 POW Camp. He later helped Franz von Werra to escape. Helmuth Pohle Helmuth Pohle was a German aviator during World War II. In October 1939 he led the first German aerial attack on the United Kingdom, during which he was shot down and captured. He was the first German prisoner of war in World War II. Hauptmann (equivalent to Flight Lieutenant) Pohle, was the group commanding officer (Gruppenkommandeur), of Kampfgeschwader 30 (I. KG 30) from Westerland, Germany in Sylt and led the German raid known as the Battle of the River Forth. On 16 October"
"Over Here (miniseries) Over Here is a 2-part television miniseries made in 1996 by the BBC for BBC1 from 7 to 8 April 1996, this comedy-drama miniseries chronicling the lives of US Army Air Corps B-17 Flying Fortress bomber crews on a Royal Air Force Spitfire base during World War II. Samuel West starred as the RAF pilot Archie Bunting. Martin Clunes starred as Group Captain Barker; a man who flinches at the mention of, and has an inability to say the word, ""Luftwaffe"". The miniseries is littered with historical inaccuracies.<https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117274/characters/nm0167340?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t8> Conflict arose when American soldiers must share their barracks."
"interested in an Australian edition of the book. None were interested so Brickhill was forced to decline Nerney's offer. At the same time Brickhill had been approached by John Pudney who had recently joined London based publisher Evans Brothers as an editor with a proposal to write a book on the Stalag Luft 3 mass escape. This was eventually to be published as ""The Great Escape"". With the advance that Evans Brothers offered Brickhill he left his job and sailed to England in May 1949. Once in England he a wrote to Air Chief Marshall Sir Ralph Cochrane of the"
"been assigned to the newly formed crew of a B-24 Liberator heavy bomber, called ""Flying Foxhole"", as tail gunner, and sent to Mandia, an air base in Apulia, southern Italy, in the summer of 1944. Isaacs is frightened by his first bomb run, which is against the heavily defended industrial area of Wiener Neustadt in Austria. He feels alienated from his fellow crewmembers because he is older than them, and also because he is the only Jew on the bomber. However, he manages to get accustomed to the terrifying flights over Nazi-occupied Europe, and to establish some camaraderie with the"
"the experience called ""Flug in die Hölle"" (""Flight into Hell""). He also had a successful career as a film director. In 1985, a four-part television miniseries named ""Flight into Hell"" based on Hans Betram's book was made by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Gordon Flemyng was the director. The makeshift canoe was recovered by staff from the Western Australian Museum in 1975 and is now on display at the Aviation Heritage Museum in Bull Creek. 1932 Kimberley rescue In 1932, pilot Hans Bertram and mechanic Adolph Klausmann were rescued while attempting to circumnavigate the world in a Junkers W 33 seaplane."
"Jerzy Mondschein, Kazimierz Pawluk and Paweł Tobolski. This episode of history was the subject of the 1963 film ""The Great Escape"", starring Steve McQueen. It was the biggest and the most deadly escape of officer aircrew captured by Nazi Germany during the entire World War II. The number of prisoners attempting the escape was 200, of whom 76 managed to leave the camp; 73 were caught and 50 executed on Hitler's orders. Just three successfully escaped, one to Gibraltar and two to Sweden. All three re-united in England. There were only a few other, similar escapes from German PoW camps"
"he was in a squadron that ran out of fuel over Algeria. He was captured, then moved to prison camps in Germany. He spent three years at camps such as Stalag Luft III, Dulag Luft, Offlag XXI-B, Sagan, Nuremberg and Moosburg. He made four unsuccessful escape attempts and on the fifth try made it out to Switzerland in March 1945. Vogtle was the inspiration for the POW character portrayed by Steve McQueen in the movie ""The Great Escape"". After the war, he was employed at Alabama Power as a legal counsel and rose through the ranks to become President and"
"raid on these dams in May 1943 (Operation ""Chastise"") was immortalised in Paul Brickhill's 1951 book ""The Dam Busters"" and the 1955 film of the same name. The Möhne and Eder dams were successfully breached, causing damage to German factories and disrupting hydro-electric power. After the success of the bouncing bomb, Wallis was able to return to his huge bombs, producing first the Tallboy (6 tonnes) and then the Grand Slam (10 tonnes) deep-penetration earthquake bombs. These were not the same as the 5-tonne ""blockbuster"" bomb, which was a conventional blast bomb. Although there was still no aircraft capable of"
"Garlic – the Dortmund–Ems Canal raid. After his Lancaster was damaged by flying into a tree he was able to allow his crew to bail out but was unable to land the aircraft. He is buried in Den Ham General Cemetery, the Netherlands. In the 1955 film ""The Dam Busters"", Knight was played by Denys Graham. Les Knight Leslie Gordon Knight, (7 March 1921 – 16 September 1943) was a Royal Australian Air Force pilot who served with the Royal Air Force's Bomber Command during the Second World War. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order in 1943 for taking"