Eric 'Winkle' Brown - known as 'Winkle' because of his diminutive size - was one of the most successful fighter pilots during World War II. After beginning his career as a bomber, he later became a test-pilot spending much of his time testing the viability of aircraft, to see if they could land successfully on carriers during battle.
In this documentary he gets to tell his story with the aid of archive footage and photos pasted into his personal scrapbooks. Having gone up in a plane at first during his teenage years, he eventually spent some time in Nazi Germany, where he met the country's second most successful World War I pilot. This pilot challenged Brown to learn to fly and learn German; both tasks were successfully accomplished. When war broke out, Brown was stranded in Germany; he was captured by the SS, stripped of all his clothes and valuables and deposited on the Swiss border.
As well as the day-to-day business of piloting, Brown also had a second career as an interrogator; among his subjects were Hermann Goering, and the commandant of Belsen concentration camp. The horrors of discovering precisely what had gone on in these institutions proved exceptionally traumatic for Brown - even after seventy years, he is still obviously moved while recounting his experiences.
This documentary tells a vivid story, but at the same time makes us aware of war's unpleasant side, especially for soldiers charged with the responsibility of clearing up after the conflict had ended. The only jarring note in an otherwise entertaining program is James Holland's rather supercilious introduction, claiming that he (Holland) had studies most aspects of the theater of war between 1939 and 1945. BRITAIN'S GREATEST PILOT is not Holland's story, so why should we need to know this?
In this documentary he gets to tell his story with the aid of archive footage and photos pasted into his personal scrapbooks. Having gone up in a plane at first during his teenage years, he eventually spent some time in Nazi Germany, where he met the country's second most successful World War I pilot. This pilot challenged Brown to learn to fly and learn German; both tasks were successfully accomplished. When war broke out, Brown was stranded in Germany; he was captured by the SS, stripped of all his clothes and valuables and deposited on the Swiss border.
As well as the day-to-day business of piloting, Brown also had a second career as an interrogator; among his subjects were Hermann Goering, and the commandant of Belsen concentration camp. The horrors of discovering precisely what had gone on in these institutions proved exceptionally traumatic for Brown - even after seventy years, he is still obviously moved while recounting his experiences.
This documentary tells a vivid story, but at the same time makes us aware of war's unpleasant side, especially for soldiers charged with the responsibility of clearing up after the conflict had ended. The only jarring note in an otherwise entertaining program is James Holland's rather supercilious introduction, claiming that he (Holland) had studies most aspects of the theater of war between 1939 and 1945. BRITAIN'S GREATEST PILOT is not Holland's story, so why should we need to know this?
