Stolen hero
An English news agency report from London last week audaciously claimed one of the great Aussie war characters as one of their own (Great Escape hero rejected Hollywood’s version of tale, page 18, August 8). The 1963 film The Great Escape was an adaptation of the best-selling autobiography by Paul Brickhill about the breakout from Stalag Luft III. But he was Australian, not British as published. Brickhill, who died aged 74 in 1991, was a Sydney journalist before joining the RAAF and being shot down over Germany in 1943. He didn’t take part in the Great Escape himself, though, because he was claustrophobic and could not cope with the confines of a tunnel.
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