Paul Brickhill

I mean, horrible.

All of this, of course, detailed in the, uh, the book by the former prisoner Paul Brickhill and the 1963 film adaptation of that book, The Great Escape.

Homeowner says, "When I first laid them on the table in f- in front of them, the first thing one agent said was, 'These are original.

We want these.'" They don't know how this box ended up in the crawlspace of this garage in New York.

There's not a more fitting motto in the history of military aviation.

The story is told in detail by Paul Brickhill and the Dam Busters, and John Sweetman's historical work goes deeper into the engineering and planning if you want to follow the thread.

Primary RAF records fill in the rest.

Good reading, all of it.

Faye wanted to recommend the, um, biography Reach for the Sky: the Story of Douglas Bader.

Um, this is by Paul Brickhill.

In 1931, at the age of twenty-one, Douglas Bader was the golden boy of the RAF.

Excelling in everything he did, he represented the Royal Air Force in aerobatics, aerobatics displays, played rugby for Harlequins, and was tipped to be the next England fly-half.

Shot down in occupied France, his German captors had to confiscate his tin legs in order to stop him from trying to escape.

Bader faced it all, disability, leadership, and capture, with the same, uh, charm, charisma, and determination that was an inspiration to all around him.

Let's hear a sample of this, uh, classic, Reach for the Sky: the Story of Douglas Bader by Paul Brickhill.

It's narrated by Corbish Woodall.

That is what it sounds like when history goes over.

Much of what I've covered today draws on Paul Brickhill's The Damn Busters, Max Hastings' work on Bomber Command, and the records maintained by the Avro Heritage Center in Manchester.

There's more at RadioHanger.com. I'm TailDragger.

Safe skies.

It all started on a reservoir in the Ruhr, in moonlight, with two spotlights kissing black water at sixty feet.

Sources for tonight come from Paul Brickhill’s The Dam Busters, from Guy Gibson’s memoir, Enemy Coast Ahead, and from the records and collections at the Royal Air Force Museum at Hendon in London.

Find us at radiohangar.com. I’m Tail Dragger.

Keep the blue side up

So with everyone being moved around and, you know, everything else going on, you might wonder, like, how do we know? I say, well, how do we have this information? Where did the story come from? Well, we know what happened in the, quote, great escape.

thanks to Paul Brickhill.

He was a Spitfire pilot who was detained at Stagloft 3.

Stag? Stalagloft 3.

That's the kind of thing that makes you go quiet for a while and just listen to the engines.

My sources tonight include Max Hastings, Paul Brickhill's The Dam Busters, and records from the Royal Air Force Historical Branch.

More at RadioHanger.com. I'm TailDragger.

Fly safe.