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Captain Michael Clive Burn, Military Cross (11 December 1912 – 3 September 2010) was an English journalist, commando, writer and poet.
Burn's father was secretary and solicitor to the Duchy of Cornwall, becoming a trusted confidant of the King. His mother's family was instrumental in developing the golf-and-gambling resort of Le Touquet, the fashionable seaside resort in Hauts-de-France.
Initially educated at Winchester College, Burn spent only one year at New College, Oxford before the social seductions of Le Touquet won out. As he himself put it, he was not sent down: having done none of the work expected of him, he simply did not go back, choosing instead to initiate a writing career by ghosting the autobiography of "Bentley Boy" Henry Birkin.
Burn spent time in Florence, befriending Alice Keppel, the former mistress of Edward VII. A bisexual man, his lovers included later Soviet Union spy Guy Burgess. On two occasions during the 1930s Burn took himself to the police to avoid being blackmailed for the crime of homosexual conduct.
By his own admission, in earlier life he "had been drawn to three autocracies: German National Socialism, Communism, and the Roman Catholic Church." A developing interest in bettering the lot of the socially and economically deprived led Burn to a brief dalliance with National Socialism at a time when Adolf Hitler was regarded by many as having cured unemployment and given Germany back her soul. He met the German leader in 1936, who signed his copy of Mein Kampf (lost, shortly thereafter). He also attended a Nazi Party Nuremberg Rally, standing on the dais just a few feet behind the Führer himself. An unquestioning tour of Dachau crowned a period of which he later wrote that he was for a time duped by a combination of his own blindness and the "intensely organized falsehood" that would later be exposed as the engine of the 'New' Germany.
In 1936, Burn joined The Times newspaper, initially on probation on the Home Editorial desk. Here he remained until the outbreak of war, with but a brief stint in London as Diplomatic Correspondent. In 1937, with Hitler's intentions becoming ever more clear, Burn enlisted in the Queen's Westminsters, a Territorial battalion of the King's Royal Rifle Corps. Commissioned Second Lieutenant in 1938, he had, by the outbreak of war, wholly abandoned National Socialism as an engine of social change.
In March 1942, as a Captain in command of number 6 Troop, No. 2 Commando, he took part in Operation Chariot, the St. Nazaire Raid, his own 6 Troop contributing 29 men to the overall total of 264 Army personnel taking part. As leader of the starboard column of troop carried in several Motor Launches (MLs), Burn's ML192 was one of the first vessels to come under fire, crashing ablaze into the Old Mole. Of his 6 Troop contingent, 14 men were killed. The rest, many of whom were forced to take to the water, were captured early on.
Having been hauled ashore by one of his men, and despite being wounded several times, Burn was able to make his way to his target, the only member of his team to do so. Burn later attempted to escape the tightening German cordon along with two of his men, one of whom was killed. Burn, along with his remaining companion, was captured and entered a lengthy period of confinement as a "guest of the Reich".
For his actions during the raid Burn received the award of the Military Cross. Of the 609 soldiers and sailors who entered the Loire estuary that night, five were awarded the Victoria Cross – the greatest number for any single action during the war.
At Colditz Burn studied for a Oxford diploma and wrote a novel fictionalizing his years as a prisoner, which was published as Yes, Farewell in 1946. Ben Macintyre wrote that it was the only good novel from a Colditz prisoner of war. On liberation, Burn sent dispatches to The Times that appeared in the newspaper on 19 and 21 April 1945; they were the first detailed published descriptions of a prisoner-of-war camp.
While at Colditz, Burn had received a Red Cross parcel from an old Dutch friend and former lover, Ella van Heemstra. After his release from Colditz, Burn sent packages with food and cigarettes to van Heemstra. The food helped the malnourished van Heemstra and her daughter, Audrey (future actress and humanitarian activist Audrey Hepburn), survive the hardships following the end of the war. Van Heemstra sold the cigarettes for penicillin on the black market to treat the seriously ill Hepburn, perhaps saving her life.
Burn ended the war as a captain.
Burn wrote nine books of non-fiction, four novels and six books of poetry. He enjoyed reading his poetry aloud at regional poetry events. He also wrote a play, The Night of the Ball, which opened in London's West End in 1954 starring Gladys Cooper.
Burn's autobiography, Turned Towards the Sun, was published in 2003.
A documentary about the life of Micky Burn, titled Turned Towards the Sun, was filmed in 2008 and 2009 and produced by James Dorrian, Nick Golding, Laura Morris, Greg Olliver and associate produced by Robert Ozn. It premièred at the British Film Institute (BFI) London Film Festival in 2012. The film's director, Greg Olliver, earned a BFI Grierson Award nomination. (Olliver also co-directed Lemmy, the documentary about Lemmy Kilmister of Motörhead.)
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