Paul Beaver.
PAUL BEAVER: ERIC BROWN BIOGRAPHY
WINKLE: THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE OF BRITAIN’S GREATEST PILOT (2023)
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Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown (born 1920) was an extraordinarily accomplished British test pilot. An officer in the Royal Navy, he broke many records, notably the record (never yet surpassed) for the greatest number of deck take-offs and landing on an aircraft carrier (2,407 and 2,271). HIs ‘firsts’ included the first landings on an aircraft carrier of a twin-engined aircraft, a jet aircraft, and a helicopter. The variety of aircraft he flew is remarkable; it included almost every type of Royal Air Force and Royal Navy aircraft - helicopter, flying boat, amphibian, airliner, bomber and fighter. And during the Second World War he flew captured Japanese, Italian and German aircraft.
Born in Hackney, East London, Brown was put up for adoption and was adopted by a Scottish family - Euphemia and Robert Brown - who lived in Edinburgh. His first flying experience was at the age of 18 when his father took him to the 1938 Olympic Games in Berlin, and his father (who had served as a pilot in the First World War) introduced him to flying ace Ernst Udet, who took Eric up for an aerobatic flight. During his time studyng modern languages at Edinburgh University Brown learned to fly with the university’s air corps. After the outbreak of the Second World War he joined the Fleet Air Arm, serving on the aircraft carrier HMS Audacity, whose sinking by a U-boat he survived only after spending a night in the water.
The Daily Mail wrote of Beaver’s biography: ‘A thumping great biography of the flying ace who made Top Gun look tame … enthralling’. The Sunday Times wrote: ‘Winkle Brown’s astonishing adventures make for fascinating reading’.
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Paul Beaver is a journalist, author and broadcaster specialising in aviation history. He worked for fifteen years with the publishers Janes, where he was editor of Jane’s defence Weekly. His research into the history of aircraft carriers led to his book The British Aircraft Carrier, for which he interviewed over a hundred people who had served in the Fleet Air Arm. Beaver is himself a pilot and owns a vintage Miles Messenger aircraft, painted to reflect the appearnce of Field Marshal Montgomery’s aircraft at the time of D-Day.
