Callanan, Mary
Canberra
Canton, Norman ‘Conk’
Cavanagh, Graham
Cheshire, Leonard, VC
Clark, Albert ‘Bub’
Clark, Robert
Clavell, James
Cleary, Jon
Coburn, James
Codner, Michael
Coe, Fred
Collins, Sir William ‘Billy’
Commonwealth Bank
Communism
Connolly, Roy
Cordes, Oberstleutnant Erich
Courier-Mail
Cradon, McGowan
Cunningham, Dan
Dahl, Roald
Daily Express
Daily Telegraph
Dam Busters
The Dam Busters
film
Pan paperback edition
Darwen, Wing Commander William
Darwin (seat of)
David Higham Associates
Davidson, James E. (Jed)
Davy, Elizabeth
Day, Wing Commander Harry ‘Wings’
D-Day Landings
de Niverville, Wing Commander Joseph
The Deadline
War of Nerves
Denison, Sir Hugh
Department of Information
Dimmock, Flight Sergeant Harry
Dodge, Major Johnny
Donald, Flight Lieutenant Jack
Dowse, Sydney
Duff, Gordon
Duke, Flying Officer Neville
Dulag Luft
Dunne, Pat
Eden, Sir Anthony
Embry, Air Chief Marshal Sir Basil
escape from Stalag Luft
Escape Or Die
Escape to Danger
writing
Evans Brothers
Evening News, the
Examiner, the
Faber & Faber
Fanshawe, Peter ‘Hornblower’
Fifty, the
Finch, Kate
Finch, Peter
Fincham, Arthur D.
Fincham, Vallance and Co
Fisher, Andrew
Floody, Wallace ‘Wally’
Focke-Wulf 190 fighter
Fox, Del
Gabes
Gades, Frau
Gaffney, James
Galland, Adolf
Gammon, Victor
Garner, James
Gatty, Harold
Geneva Convention
Gestapo
Gibson (Hyman), Evelyn
Gibson, Wing Commander Guy, VC
Enemy Coast Ahead
Gieves Ltd
Glemnitz, Sergeant Hermann
Goering, Reich Marshal Hermann
Gotfurt, Frederick
Graham, Winston
The Great Escape
film
film rights
United States television version
Greenfield, George
Griese, Corporal Karl ‘Rubberneck’
Griffin, Walter Burley
Guest, Tommy
Gulick, Bill
Gullett, Sir Henry
Hake, Albert ‘Al’
Harper, Squadron Leader William
Harris, Air Marshal Sir Arthur ‘Bomber’
Harsh, George
Hartnell, Norman
Hastings, Hugh
Hay, Bob
Herald
Herman, Joe
Higham, David
Himmelpforten
Himmler, Heinrich
Hitler, Adolf
Hoffman, Dirk
Hoffman, Vera
Howard, Lance
Howe, Freddy
Hudson, Lionel ‘Bill’
Hughes, Billy
Humphries, Adjutant Harry
Humphries, Flight Lieutenant Peter ‘Hunk’
Hurricane IIb fighters
Hyman, Jack
Isaacs, Sir Isaac
Italian First Army
Jackson, Sir Peter
James, Bertram ‘Jimmy’
Jewish refugees, post-war Berlin
John Bull
Johnson, Johnnie
Johnson, Norman
Kee, Robert
Kellow, Bob
Kenyon, Flight Lieutenant Ley
Ker-Ramsey, Robert ‘Crump’
Kingsford Smith, Sir Charles
Kingsford Smith, Peter
Knight, Les
Krige, Uys
Labor Party
Langsam, David
Launceston, Tasmania
Leggo, Jack
London, post-war
Luftwaffe
Lupp, Nurse Maria
M19
McCormack, Bernard
McGarr, Neville
McGill, George
McGowan, Mac
McQueen, Steve
Mail, Adelaide
Malan, Adolph ‘Sailor’
Marks, George ‘Doggie’
Marshall, Cuthbert ‘Johnny’
Martin, Harold ‘Micky’
Massey, Group Captain Herbert
Melbourne Press Bond
Messerschmitt Bf 109s
Miller, Leonie
Milne, Dicky
Minchin, Devon
Mirisch Corporation
Mirisch, Walter
Moehne dam
Moorehead, Alan
More, Kenneth
Morgan, Squadron Leader John
Morison, Walt
Mudge, Muriel
Muller, Jens
Murdoch, Rupert
Murdoch, Sir Keith
Murn, Cecil
Mycroft, Walter
Nebe, General Arthur
Nerney, John
Newman, Walter
News, the
News Limited
newspaper business
North Africa conflict
Norton, Conrad
Norton, Eve
Norton & Co
Nuremberg trials
O’Malley, King
Pearn, Nancy
Pearn, Pollinger and Higham
People magazine
Philpot, Oliver
Pieber, Hauptmann Hans
Pollack, Sydney
Pollinger, Laurence
Prichard, Katharine Susannah
Prichard, Tom
Pudney, John
Quill, Norman
Reach for the Sky
Recorder, the
Reeve, Christopher
Regia Aeronautica
Rimmer, Matron F. M.
Rommel, Field Marshal Erwin
Rose, Paddy
Rowe, Hugh
Royal Air Force Escaping Society (RAFES)
Royal Air Force Special Investigations Branch
Royal Air Force’s Number 74 Squadron
Royal Air Force’s Number 92 Squadron
Royal Air Force’s Number 145 Squadron
Royal Air Force’s Number 617 Squadron
Royle, Paul
Sage, Jerry
Schacht, Hjalmar
Schubin escape
Scott, Paul
Second Battle of El Alamein
Shand, Alec, QC
Shannon, Dave
Sherriff, R. C. (Bob)
Silliphant, Stirling
Sinclair, Gordon
Slater, Edric
Slater, Jeanette
Society of Australian Writers (SAW)
Sorpe dam
Spafford, ‘Spam’
Speer, Albert
Spitfire fighters
SS Largs Bray
Stalag Luft 3
BBC broadcast on escape
Dick tunnel
Eastern Compound escape
escape
escape plans
George tunnel
the Fifty
Harry tunnel
Tom, Dick and Harry tunnels
tunnelling methods
Steele, Ruth
Stockings, Henry
Sturges, John
&n
bsp; Summers, Mutt
Sun, the
The Sunburnt Country
Sunday Telegraph
Sydney Morning Herald, the
tax and tax issues
Taylor, Rod
Tedder, Lord
Telegraph, the
Tiger Moth, De Havilland DH 82
Torr, Pat
Torrens, Dave
Travis, Johnny
Tunis
Ulm, Charles
Ulm, John
Uplands, Ontario
Valenta, Arnost ‘Wally’
van der Stock, Bob
VE Day
von Lindeiner, Oberst Friedrich
von Massow, Hauptmann Günther
von Ribbentrop, Joachim
Waddell, William
Wadery, Flight Lieutenant William
Walenn, Gilbert ‘Tim’
Wallis, Barnes
War of Nerves
Wareham, Edward
Watkins, Mike
Welch, Lorne
West, Morris
Whittaker, W. A. ‘Bill’
Wigmore, Lionel ‘Wiggy’
William Collins and Sons
Williams, Doug
Williams, Eric
The Wooden Horse
Williams, John ‘Willy’
Willson, Robert
Wilmot, Chester
Wilmot, Fred
Wilson, Group Captain Douglas
Wirth’s Circus
Woman’s Day
The Wooden Horse
film version
World War One
World War Two
Zeehan, Tasmania
George Brickhill, Paul’s father, co-founder of the Australian Journalists Association.
Courtesy of Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance
Future Hollywood star Peter Finch at Mosman, just months before Paul Brickhill befriended him in 1927.
Paul Brickhill (sitting on the ground, front row, second from the left) with RAF Spitfire fighter pilot training course No. 10 members, Llandow, Wales, 1942.
AWM P02372.001
Paul Brickhill (front row, second from the right, squatting) and other Australian and New Zealand prisoners of war commemorating Anzac Day in Stalag Luft 3 in 1944, two weeks after learning that fifty comrades had been shot by the Gestapo following the Great Escape. The photo was taken on the secret camera smuggled into the camp to take ID photos for Great Escapers’ forged papers.
AWM P00270.027
Paul Brickhill’s Luftwaffe Personalkarte from Stalag Luft 3.
National Archives of Australia
The house at 41 George Street, Greenwich Point, Sydney, purchased in 1947 by Brickhill for his parents, and where he lived with them briefly on several occasions between 1948 and 1964.
Courtesy of Louise Dando-Collins
Brickhill and new wife Margot in London, at a 1950 Australia House function of the Society of Australian Writers, which Brickhill co-founded, just as The Great Escape was becoming a bestseller.
Paul and Margot arrive in Sydney in 1953 on their first return to Australia as a married couple. Paul was unaware at the time that Margot was pregnant with their first child.
Fairfax Syndication
Paul and Margot aboard the Fairsky at Fremantle on their 1959 return to Australia with their children, Timothy and Tempe.
WestPix
The RAF’s 617 Squadron commander and Dam Busters hero Guy Gibson with wife Eve at Buckingham Palace in 1943, after King George VI presented Gibsonwith the Victoria Cross. Eve would later cause Brickhill major headaches, delaying the release of the Dam Busters movie.
Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
A still from the Dam Busters film, with, centre, Richard Todd playing Guy Gibson, and beside him, with the moustache, Bill Kerr, playing Australian pilot Micky Martin.
Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images
Legless RAF fighter pilot and POW Douglas Bader with wife Thelma (right) and his sister-in-law, Jill Addison.
Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
John Sturges, producer and director of the Hollywood adaptation of Brickhill’s The Great Escape, on location in Bavaria in 1962 with his temperamental star Steve McQueen, during the shooting of motorcycle chase scenes that never occurred in the original true story.
Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images
Brickhill at ‘Little Barr’, his house outside London, with his Jaguar, 1962.
Brickhill’s close friend and fellow author Jon Cleary, who, at one point, loaned Brickhill, his wife and children his house and car on Sydney’s North Shore.
Fairfax Syndication
Brickhill at his Balmoral, Sydney apartment in the early 1980s, when he was planning a new book, which he never completed.
The exterior of Brickhill’s Balmoral apartment building, overlooking Middle Harbour. Brickhill spent the last twenty-five reclusive years of his life in a small top-floor apartment here.
Courtesy of Louise Dando-Collins
Acknowledgements
MANY PEOPLE CONTRIBUTED to the creation of this book. First and foremost, Meredith Curnow, my publisher at Random House Australia for the past ten years, who guided me down the path that led to Brickhill. And Richard Curtis, my longtime New York literary agent, who has held my hand through many a book. My grateful thanks also go to the following …
SYDNEY: Denis Smith, President, Lane Cove Historical Society; former Sun journalist and Spitfire pilot John Ulm; Linda Ta of accountancy firm Winn Croucher Partners; Dr Philip Georgouras and his wife Tina, owners of ‘Craig Rossie’; Allison Purdy, Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (successor to the Australian Journalists Assocation); Debbie Locke, North Sydney Boys High School; NSW State Archives’ always helpful Kingsgrove staff; National Archives of Australia, Chester Hill staff. And my hard-working editor at Random House Australia, Patrick Mangan.
MELBOURNE: Christopher Widenbar, Shrine of Remembrance.
TASMANIA: Robyn Jones, Launceston Historical Society; David Parker, Beaconsfield, whose suggestion sparked this book.
PORT PIRIE: Greg Mayfield, Recorder editor.
WESTERN AUSTRALIA: Maria Lupp, Paul Brickhill’s former nurse.
CANBERRA: Australian War Memorial Research Centre staff; National Library of Australia staff.
AUCKLAND: My guide Robert Kent.
LONDON: David Bickers, chairman of the Douglas Bader Foundation and son-in-law of Sir Douglas Bader; Robert Brown, Faber & Faber historian; Georgia Glover of Brickhill’s literary agents David Higham Associates; Simon Gee, Elstree and Borehamwood Museum; Bob Redman, secretary, Elstree Screen Heritage.
TORQUAY, DEVON: John Tucker and Alison Willcocks, Torquay Library; Jean Bowden; and Torquay’s Herald.
GLASGOW: Dawn Sinclair, HarperCollins archivist; Alma Topen and Gaby Laing, University of Glasgow.
NEW YORK CITY: Nick Minchin, stepbrother to Timothy and Tempe Brickhill; and Gloria Loomis and Julia Masnik, Watkins/Loomis Literary Agency.
AUSTIN, TEXAS: Richard B Watson and Ali Dzienkowski, Harry Ransom Centre, University of Texas.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Penguin Random House Australia. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Version 1.0
The Hero Maker: A Biography of Paul Brickhill
ePub ISBN – 9780857988133
First published by Vintage in 2016
Copyright © Fame and Fortune Pty Ltd, 2016
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
A Vintage bo
ok
Published by Penguin Random House Australia Pty Ltd
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Addresses for the Penguin Random House group of companies can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com/offices.
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Dando-Collins, Stephen, 1950– author
The hero maker: a biography of Paul Brickhill: the Australian behind the legendary stories The Dam Busters, The Great Escape and Reach for the Sky/Stephen Dando-Collins
ISBN 978 0 85798 813 3 (ebook)
Brickhill, Paul, 1916–1991
Fighter pilots – Australia – Biography
Authors – 20th century – Biography
Soldiers – Australia – Biography
940.544944092
Cover image © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS
Cover design by Luke Causby/Blue Cork
Ebook by Firstsource
Every effort has been made to identify individual photographers and copyright holders where appropriate, but for some photographs this has not been possible. The publishers would be pleased to hear from any copyright holders who have not been acknowledged.
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