Richard Pape


Richard Bernard Pape MM was a British Second World War escapee, adventurer, autobiographer and novelist.
Pape was born in 1916 in Roundhay, Leeds, Yorkshire.
During the Second World War adventures, he became a navigator in a Short Stirling bomber. He was shot down close to the German/Dutch border, was twice captured and twice escaped, and was eventually repatriated by the Germans after substituting a sick man's urine for his own. He subsequently suffered a drunken motorcycle accident on the Isle of Man, which led to his being hospitalised at Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead, for pioneer plastic surgery under Archibald McIndoe: he thus became a member of the Guinea Pig Club.
After the war, he wrote a book-length account of his adventures, Boldness Be My Friend. The book was brought to Anthony Blond's London literary agency in 1952 by Vanora McIndoe, Sir Archibald's daughter. After being read and approved by Blond's colleague Isabel Colegate, it was published in 1953 by Paul Elek, who paid a £600 advance.
In June 1965, Pape returned his Military Medal to the Queen in protest at The Beatles having been awarded the MBE. He was quoted as saying: "The Beatles' MBE reeks of mawkish, bizarre effrontery to our wartime endeavours."
He died in Canberra, Australia in 1995 at the age of 79.

Selected publications