Paul Chester Jerome Brickhill (20 December 1916–23 April 1991) was an Australian fighter pilot, prisoner of war, and author who wrote The Great Escape, The Dam Busters, and Reach for the Sky.[1]
Brickhill was born in Melbourne, Victoria to journalist George Russell Brickhill (1879–1965) and Izitella Victoria (née Bradshaw) Brickhill (1885–1966).[2] He was the third son of the couple's five children, the others being Russell (1911–2002), Ayde Geoffrey (1914–), Lloyd (1918–2011), and Clive (1923–2009).[3] When Brickhill was 11 the family moved to Sydney, where he was educated at North Sydney Boys High School. A classmate, and friend, was actor Peter Finch.[4]
Brickhill left school in 1931 after his father had been made redundant as a result of the Depression. While his other brothers continued with their education it was necessary for Brickhill, who was regarded as the least academic child, to get a job to assist his older brother Russell in bringing money into the family.[5] He was sacked from his first two jobs due to his stutter. He then got a job as office boy and then lift boy at the Adelaide Steamship Company. That job did not last long, as Peter Finch, who was by then working as a copy boy, was able to convince a news editor at The Sun to interview Brickhill in 1932.[6] Brickhill was hired as a copy boy, and within a year was promoted to cadet journalist. Within a few years he had worked his way up to journalist, and by 1940 was a sub-editor.[7]
World War II
Brickhill was unimpressed by war fever, until the shock of the invasion of France and subsequent withdrawal from Dunkirk, coupled with boredom with his deskbound sub-editor job, induced him to enlist on 6 January 1941 with the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF).[8] 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 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.[9] He was flown to Italy on 23 March, then sent by train to Germany. After being held at the Dulag Luft at Oberursel, a central receiving and interrogation station for captured enemy airmen for the Luftwaffe, he was sent to Stalag Luft III, in Lower Silesia, 150km southeast of Berlin, arriving there on 4 April 1943.[10] Brickhill became involved with organizing the camp's escape, initially as a lookout or "stooge", before volunteering to work as a digger on the "Tom" tunnel.[11] He developed claustrophobia, so he was put in charge of security for the forgers. Because of his claustrophobia and the risk that he would panic and block the escape of those behind him, he was not allowed to take part in the escape attempt, which is known as "The Great Escape".[12]
Following the announcement of the murder of the escapees who had been recaptured following the Great Escape, Brickhill became determined to document the event. Discussing the subject with fellow prisoner Conrad Norton, they found that many of their fellow prisoners had other tales of daring escapes that would justify a book following the end of the war. As Brickhill had been involved in "The Great Escape", he concentrated on that story, while Norton collected individual tales.[13] Since the prisoners were forbidden from writing anything other than letters and postcards, they collected every piece of paper they could find and, writing in as small a hand as possible, they collected stories and hid them from the guards.
Return to journalism
Following the end of the war, while the terms of his enlistment with the RAAF had been that he had to serve for 12 months following the cessation of hostilities, Brickhill was granted six months' leave without pay. During his leave he returned to journalism, working as a London-based correspondent for Associated Newspapers. Meanwhile, outside of working hours he had typed up his and Norton's stories and selected David Higham as their literary agent.[14] With Higham's help the manuscript was accepted by Faber & Faber and published as Escape to Danger in 1946.
After working for Associated Newspapers for a period, Brickhill returned to Australia, taking a job as a sub-editor at The Sun newspaper in Sydney, Australia.[15]
Brickhill and Norton had agreed that each would retain the copyright to the chapters that they had written for Escape to Danger. As a result, while awaiting for sufficient stocks of paper to be obtained to print the book, Brickhill was able to sell a condensed version of his chapter on the Great Escape to several newspapers in Australia.
The Great Escape and The Dam Busters
After the end of World War II, John Nerney, head of the Air Historical Branch of the British Air Ministry identified the need for a history of 617 Squadron. While trying to find a suitable author he discussed the issue with John Pudney, who was an editor at News Review. Pudney had liked Escape to Danger and suggested that Brickhill be considered.[16]
Following up Pudney's recommendation, Nerney approached Brickhill in February 1949, who jumped at the offer. While doing all it could to assist his research the Air Ministry could only provide Brickhill with a small honorarium, and no guarantee of publication other than as a government produced publication.[17] In an attempt to obtain an advance which would pay enough for him to leave his current job as a sub-editor at The Sun and relocate to England, Brickhill approached a number of Australian publishers to see if they were interested in an Australian edition of the book. None was interested, so Brickhill was forced to decline Nerney's offer.[18]
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 III mass escape. This was eventually to be published as The Great Escape.[18] With the advance that Evans Brothers offered Brickhill, he left his job and sailed to England in May 1949.[19]
Once in England, Brickhill asked the RAF about the status of the proposed history of 617 Squadron, offering his services if they were still required. As the RAF had made no further progress in finding an alternative author, his offer was accepted.[20] Brickhill approached Evans Brothers about an advance for the proposed book on 617 Squadron, but they were not interested in providing any advance until they saw a manuscript.[21] Already working on The Great Escape, Brickhill also commenced simultaneous work on the 617 Squadron history.
The Great Escape was published in 1950 and brought the incident to wide public attention.
The history of 617 Squadron and in particular its involvement in Operation Chastise and the destruction of dams in the Ruhr valley was published in 1951 as The Dam Busters, which sold over one million copies over 50 years.[22][23]
Following the success of The Dam Busters, Robert Clark the head of production at Associated British Picture Corporation approached Brickhill about acquiring the screen rights to the book. The company's production manager was of the opinion that there were too many people and raids involved, and that they would not be able to film the book in its entirety. As a result, he requested that Brickhill provide a condensed film treatment. Brickhill agreed to do it without payment, in the hope of selling the screen rights. To assist, Clark teamed him up with Walter Mycroft who was the company's Director of Production.[24] Brickhill decided to concentrate the film treatment on Operation Chastise, and ignore the later raids.
Associated agreed with Brickhill on the film rights in December 1952 for what is believed to have been £5,000.[25]
The subsequent film was released in 1954 as The Dam Busters.
Reach for the Sky
After reading The Dam Busters, Battle of Britain ace Douglas Bader approached Brickhill in 1951 about collaborating on his biography.[26] Brickhill agreed to undertake the project.[27]
Several publishers were approached about the proposed biography. Brickhill's agent found that William Collins and Sons offered the best terms, leading Brickhill to sign with them. However Brickhill felt guilty about not signing with John Pudney and Evans Brothers, who had previously been so supportive of him. He consequently offered to write an anthology of escape stories for them, eventually published as Escape – Or Die.[28]
The biography of Bader was published in 1954 as Reach for the Sky. In the first few months alone, 172,000 copies were sold.[29] The initial print run of 300,000 quickly sold out, and the biography became the best-selling hardback in post-war Britain.
The book was subsequently adapted for the screen and released in 1956 as a feature film. Starring Kenneth More as Bader, it topped the box office in Britain that year.[30]
Later life
Brickhill spent the rest of his life working on unfinished film screenplays, novels and biographies, but was unable to repeat his successes of 1949 to 1954.
In 1969 he returned to live permanently in Australia.[31] Brickhill died in Sydney, New South Wales on 23 April 1991 aged 74.[1][32]
Personal life
After meeting on a ship from Australia to England in 1949, the 33-year-old Brickhill married 21-year-old Margot Slater, also an Australian, in St. Michael's Church, Chester Square, Pimlico on 22 April 1950. They divorced on 20 July 1964 after a tempestuous marriage.[33][1] Margot later married Devon Minchin.
Paul and Margot Brickhill had two children: Timothy Paul (14 April 1954– )[34] and Tempe Melinda (August 1957– ).[35] After working as a fashion model Tempe became manager of Issey Miyake London, CEO of Issey Miyake Europe and a director of Fédération Française de la Couture.[36]
Biographies about Brickhill
His life was the subject of a 2016 biography, The Hero Maker: A Biography of Paul Brickhill, by Stephen Dando-Collins[33] and Flying into Danger: The Paul Brickhill Story by John Ramsland.[37]
Bibliography
Brickhill wrote the following books:
Escape to Danger (with Conrad Norton). London: Faber and Faber, 1946.[38]
Richard Andrew Palethorpe-Todd was an Irish-British actor known for his leading man roles of the 1950s. He received a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer – Male, and an Academy Award for Best Actor nomination and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor nomination for his performance as Corporal Lachlan MacLachlan in the 1949 film The Hasty Heart. His other notable roles include Jonathan Cooper in Stage Fright (1950), Wing Commander Guy Gibson in The Dam Busters (1955), Sir Walter Raleigh in The Virgin Queen (1955), and Major John Howard in The Longest Day (1962). He was previously a Captain in the British Army during World War II, fighting in the D-Day landings as a member of the 7th Parachute Battalion.
The Dam Busters is a 1955 British epic docudrama war film starring Richard Todd and Michael Redgrave, that was directed by Michael Anderson. Adapted by R. C. Sherriff from the books The Dam Busters (1951) by Paul Brickhill and Enemy Coast Ahead (1946) by Guy Gibson, the film depicts the true story of Operation Chastise when in 1943 the RAF's 617 Squadron attacked the Möhne, Eder, and Sorpe dams in Nazi Germany with Barnes Wallis's bouncing bomb.
Group Captain Sir Douglas Robert Steuart Bader, was a Royal Air Force flying ace during the Second World War. He was credited with 22 aerial victories, four shared victories, six probables, one shared probable and 11 enemy aircraft damaged.
Operation Chastise, commonly known as the Dambusters Raid, was an attack on German dams carried out on the night of 16/17 May 1943 by 617 Squadron RAF Bomber Command, later called the Dam Busters, using special "bouncing bombs" developed by Barnes Wallis. The Möhne and Edersee dams were breached, causing catastrophic flooding of the Ruhr valley and of villages in the Eder valley; the Sorpe Dam sustained only minor damage. Two hydroelectric power stations were destroyed and several more damaged. Factories and mines were also damaged and destroyed. An estimated 1,600 civilians – about 600 Germans and 1,000 enslaved labourers, mainly Soviet – were killed by the flooding. Despite rapid repairs by the Germans, production did not return to normal until September. The RAF lost 56 aircrew, with 53 dead and 3 captured, amid losses of 8 aircraft.
The Dam Busters may refer to:
Number 617 Squadron is a Royal Air Force aircraft squadron, originally based at RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire and currently based at RAF Marham in Norfolk. It is commonly known as "The Dambusters", for its actions during Operation Chastise against German dams during the Second World War. In the early 21st century it operated the Panavia Tornado GR4 in the ground attack and reconnaissance role until being disbanded on 28 March 2014. The Dambusters reformed on 18 April 2018, and was equipped at RAF Marham in June 2018 with the Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning, becoming the first squadron to be based in the UK with this advanced STOVL type. The unit is composed of both RAF and Royal Navy personnel, and operates from the Royal Navy's Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers.
Tallboy or Bomb, Medium Capacity, 12,000 lb was an earthquake bomb developed by the British aeronautical engineer Barnes Wallis and used by the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the Second World War.
Reach for the Sky is a 1956 British biographical film about aviator Douglas Bader, based on the 1954 biography of the same name by Paul Brickhill. The film stars Kenneth More and was directed by Lewis Gilbert. It won the BAFTA Award for Best British Film of 1956. The film's composer John Addison was Bader's brother-in-law.
Stalag Luft III was a Luftwaffe-run prisoner-of-war (POW) camp during the Second World War, which held captured Western Allied air force personnel.
The Dam Busters is a 1951 non-fiction book by Paul Brickhill about Royal Air Force 617 Squadron 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 destroy Ruhr dams in Germany.
John Sleigh Pudney was a British poet, journalist and author. He was known especially for his popular poetry written during the Second World War, but he also wrote novels, short stories and children's fiction. His broad-ranging non-fiction, often commissioned, served as his primary source of income.
Stephen Dando-Collins is an Australian historical author and novelist, with books on antiquity, American, Australian, British, and French history, and the two world wars. He also writes children's novels, the first of which, Chance in a Million,, was filmed by PolyGram as Paws, starring Billy Connolly. In 2012, he started the Caesar the War Dog series of children's novels, based on the true stories of modern-day military dogs serving in Afghanistan and elsewhere, with the fifth in the series published in 2016.
Enemy Coast Ahead is an autobiographical book recounting the World War II flying career of Wing Commander Guy Gibson VC, DSO, DFC. It covers his time in RAF Bomber Command from the very earliest days of war in 1939 through to 1943.
Harry Melville Arbuthnot Day, was a Royal Marine and later a Royal Air Force pilot during the Second World War. As a prisoner of war, he was senior British officer in a number of camps and a noted escapee.
Group Captain James Brian "Willie" Tait, was an officer in the Royal Air Force during and after the Second World War. He conducted 101 bombing missions during the war, including the one that finally sank the German battleship Tirpitz in 1944. He succeeded Leonard Cheshire as commander of the famous 617 Squadron and with six gallantry decorations to his name, remains one of the most distinguished airmen in the history of the nations of the British Commonwealth.
No. 242 Squadron RAF was a Royal Air Force (RAF) squadron. It flew in many roles during the First World War, Second World War and Cold War.
The Great Escape is a 1950 book by Australian writer Paul Brickhill (1916–1991), that provides an insider's account of the March 1944 mass escape from the Nazi German Luftwaffe prisoner of war camp Stalag Luft III for British and Commonwealth enemy airmen. As a prisoner in the camp himself, he participated in the escape plan but was barred from the actual escape attempt 'along with three or four others on grounds of suffering from claustrophobia'. The introduction to the book is written by George Harsh, an American P.O.W. at camp Stalag Luft III. This 1950 book along with other previously published material was made into the 1963 film The Great Escape.
Operations Taxable, Glimmer and Big Drum were tactical military deceptions conducted on 6 June 1944 in support of the Allied landings in Normandy. The operations formed the naval component of Operation Bodyguard, a wider series of tactical and strategic deceptions surrounding the invasion.
David John Shannon, DSO & Bar, DFC & Bar was an Australian bomber pilot of World War II, known for his part in the "Dambusters" raid on the night of 16/17 May 1943. Born in South Australia, Shannon joined the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) in 1941 and learned to fly under the Empire Air Training Scheme. After further training in the United Kingdom he was posted to No. 106 Squadron RAF, operating Avro Lancaster heavy bombers, and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) in January 1943.
The Dam Busters is a 1954 Australian radio serial written by Morris West and produced by Gordon Grimsdale.
↑ John A Ramsland. The Bestselling Mosman Author: Paul Brickhill, RAAF & POW Hero in ISAA Review Vol 17 No.1 2019, Journal of the Independent Scholars Association of Australia Inc.
"Brickhill, Paul Chester Jerome 1916–1991." Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series, 69: 68–69.
Dando-Collins, Stephen (2016). The Hero Maker: A Biography of Paul Brickhill (Paperback). Sydney: Penguin Random House Australia. ISBN978-0-85798-812-6.
Mackenzie, S. P. (2008). Bader's War. London: Spellmount Publishers. ISBN978-0-7524-5534-1.
Ramsden, John (2003). The Dam Busters: A British Film Guide (Paperback). London: I.N. Tauris & Co. ISBN1-86064-636-0.
Ramsland, John (2016). Flying Into Danger: The Paul Brickhill Story (Paperback). Carlton, Australia: Brolga Publishing. ISBN978-1-92536-768-3.
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