"Boldness Be My Friend"
RICHARD PAPE’S book Boldness Be My Friend, as many thousands of readers of war stories will not need to be told, is the story of a prisoner of war obsessed with the idea of escape. In a foreword to the book Marshal of the Royal Air Force Lord Tedder wrote: "IT could not put it down and I shall not forget it." A four-part BBC radio adaptation of this story is now being heard from 2YD at 9.30 p.m, on Tuesdays, and it will start from 2YA at 3.30 p.m. on Sunday, October 3. Later it will be heard from other stations. Warrant Officer Pape, an R.A.F. navigator, was shot down after a bombing raid on Berlin in 1941-his 10th successful bombing mission over Germany. From the moment his crippled Stirling touch ground he set about plans to escape with a fanaticism that has led to his story being regarded by many as the greatest saga of escape yet written. The first part of Boldness Be My Friend contains a graphic description of the Berlin, raid, the crash-landing, the subsequent adventures of Pape and his companion with the Dutch underground,
and their capture by the Gesfapo. After that the programmes go on to cover Pape’s escape with a Polish prisoner after both had changed places with two New Zealanders. Pape was tortured for refusing to betray the Poles who helped them, and was placed in front of a firing squad. After that he was returned to a prison camp and again became a member of a working party-this time in Czechoslovakia, The last programme. is an account of how he escaped once more and crossed into Hungary, only to be captured by the Hungarian police. Handed over to the German Army he was nursed through meningitis and the resulting temporary blindness. In this serial the part of Richard Pape is played by James McKechnie, but in a personal contribution at the end of the series Pape himself tells how, aided by a clever ruse, he was finally repatriated through the Red Cross, Back in Britain he returned to flying, was involved in a serious crash and came under the care of the famous New Zealand plastic surgeon Sir Archibald MceIndoe, at whose suggestion Boldness Be My Friend was written as a means of recovery from his experiences. The book is dedicated to Sir Archibald and the Guinea Pig Club which he sponsored.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19540924.2.14
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 792, 24 September 1954, Page 7
Word count
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406"Boldness Be My Friend" New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 792, 24 September 1954, Page 7
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