{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2020}} {{Use Australian English|date=October 2011}} {{Infobox military person |name= Keith Bruce Chisholm |image= |image_size= |alt= |caption= |nickname= |birth_date= {{birth date|1918|12|22|df=yes}} |birth_place= [[Petersham, New South Wales]] |death_date= {{Death date and age|1991|08|23|1918|12|22|df=yes}} |death_place= [[New York City]], United States |burial_place= |allegiance= Australia |branch= [[Royal Australian Air Force]] |service_years= 1940–1946 |rank= [[Flight Lieutenant]] |service_number= 402150 |unit= [[No. 452 Squadron RAAF]] |commands= |battles= {{tree list}} * [[Second World War]] ** [[Western Front (World War II)|Channel Front]] {{tree list/end}} |awards= [[Military Cross]]<br/>[[Distinguished Flying Medal]] |relations= |other_work= Woolbuyer }} '''Keith Bruce Chisholm''', {{postnominals|country=AUS|size=100%|sep=,|MC|DFM}} (22 December 1918 – 23 August 1991)<ref name="Record">National Archives of Australia, Service Record, Keith B. Chisholm, Service No 402150.[http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/search/index.aspx] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180906151919/http://naa.gov.au/collection/search/index.aspx|date=6 September 2018}}</ref> was an Australian pilot who served in [[No. 452 Squadron RAAF]] during the [[Second World War]]. He was recognised for his exploits with the Polish and French resistance after being shot down over France in October 1941.
==Early career== Chisholm was born in [[Petersham, New South Wales]], and educated at [[Newington College]] (1930–1936).<ref>Newington College Register of Past Students 1863–1998 (Syd, 1999) pp34</ref> While training as a dentist, war broke out, and he joined the Royal Australian Air Force, in 1940 and trained with the [[British Commonwealth Air Training Plan|Empire Air Training Scheme]] in Canada, being one of the first Australian graduates.<ref>[http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article44960699 The Advertiser, Adelaide, 8 October 1941]</ref><ref name="trove.nla.gov.au">[http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article50001096 ''Barrier Miner'', Broken Hill, NSW, 21 May 1945]</ref>
==With No. 452 Squadron and capture== [[Image:K.W.Truscott and K.B. Chisholm, 452 Squadron, September 20, 1941.jpg|thumb|250px|Squadron Leader [[Keith Truscott]] (left) and Sergeant Chisholm (centre) of No. 452 (Spitfire) Squadron RAAF at an RAF station, with the Squadron Intelligence Officer, 20 September 1941]] In May 1941 he was assigned to [[No. 452 Squadron RAAF|452 squadron]], a [[Royal Australian Air Force]] squadron which belonged to the [[RAF Kenley|RAF Kenley Wing]].<ref name=Record /> In August and September 1941, he was responsible for 7 "kills," while flying [[Spitfire]] Mark Vs. On 1 October 1941, he was shot down near [[Berck-sur-Mer]], and parachuted into the sea. The official Australian War History notes: {{cquote|In Chisholm the squadron lost a pilot of outstanding ability who had contributed greatly to its record of achievements. His subsequent exploits... may serve to indicate the character of these early non-professional pilots.<ref name = "AWM"/>}}
He was captured by the Germans and sent to [[Stalag VIII-B|Lamsdorf Prisoner of War camp]].<ref name = "AWM">John Hetherington (1954) ''Air War Against Germany and Italy 1939–1943''.[Australia in the war of 1939–1945. Series 3, Air; v. 3] Australian War Memorial, Canberra. pp.140–142 .</ref> In April 1942 he and another RAAF airman exchanged identities with two soldiers and were able to join a working party outside the camp. In June, Chisholm and several others escaped. They were recaptured near [[Brno]], in [[Czechoslovakia]], and returned to [[Stalag VIII-B|Lamsdorf Prisoner of War camp]].
==Successful escape== In August 1942, having again swapped his identity, Chisholm and three others managed to escape from a work camp near [[Gliwice]] in [[Occupation of Poland (1939–1945)|occupied Poland]]. After a week they made contact with sympathetic Poles from [[Home Army]] and were taken to a resistance leader in [[Kraków]]. Chisholm lived with a Polish family in Warsaw for much of this time. Plans for escape back to England were developed and abandoned as the war progressed.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Douw van der Krap |first=Charles L. J. F. |title=Przeciw swastyce |last2=Turczyn |first2=Ryszard |date=2011 |publisher=Wydawnictwo Dolnośląskie Oddział Publicat |isbn=978-83-245-9035-3 |location=Wrocław; Poznań}}</ref>{{Rp|pages=|page=198}}
The official account of his escape notes a degree of audacity in his activities; on one occasion, when a fellow escapee's papers ({{ill|Charles Douw van der Krap|pl}}) were challenged in Poland, he pushed a German policeman into the [[Vistula]] river to effect their escape. The German subsequently drowned. According to Krap's diary, Chisholm overreacted to a routine document check, which endangered them and caused Krap's, whose document was recovered by the Germans, much trouble, forcing him into hiding.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|pages=201–204}} In March 1944, Chisholm and another Dutch escapee, {{ill|Frederik Kruimink|nl}}, left Poland by train for Berlin, using money and forged papers obtained from the Polish resistance.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|pages=206–207}}
After a day spent in Berlin; "Visiting cinemas, viewing bomb damage and dining in restaurants," Chisholm and his partner departed by train for Brussels. After many delays, Chisholm reached Paris on 10 May 1944. Here he lived with a policeman and joined the [[French Forces of the Interior]], until, with liberation, he was able to return to England on 30 August 1944.<ref name="AWM" /><ref>[http://www.conscript-heroes.com/MI9-05.html WWII Escape and Evasion Information Exchange website]</ref>
Official War historian John Hetherington commented: {{cquote|For more than two years he had by tenacity, effrontery and resilience kept himself free in enemy territory and despite repeated failures as his successive plans neared fruition, had finally surmounted all difficulties and escaped completely.<ref name = "AWM"/>}}
Chisholm was the first Empire trainee to win the [[Distinguished Flying Medal]].<ref name="trove.nla.gov.au"/>
==Later life== After the war, Chisholm sponsored a member of the family who had hidden him, Polish lawyer and former underground member Halina Kozubowska, to come to Australia. He met her on arrival in Sydney with other refugees in November 1946.<ref>[http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article18003746 ''Sydney Morning Herald'', 26 November 1946]</ref><ref>[http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article47507407 Australian Women's Weekly 4 Jan 1947]</ref>
"I always fall on my feet" he told the ''Western Mail'' in 1952, following his engagement to 24-year-old Eliane Defferriere, in Paris in 1952.<ref>[http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page3695418 ''Western Mail'', Perth. 3 July 1952]</ref> After the war he became a woolbuyer,<ref>[http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article51595637 ''Australian Women’s Weekly'', 2 July 1952]</ref> moving to Andover, Massachusetts in 1957.
Chisholm died in 1991,<ref> [http://www.warbirdsresourcegroup.org/AARG/kbchisholm.html Warbirds Resources Group]</ref> survived by his second wife, Marie-France, and four children. A memorial service was held in the Newington College Chapel.<ref>The Newingtonian (Syd, 1991) pp213</ref> In 1993, his ashes were returned to Australia by his widow and stepson and interred, with full military honours, at [[Rookwood Cemetery]] with a Newington College Guard of Honour.<ref>The Newingtonian (Syd, 1993) pp220</ref>
== See also == * [[List of World War II aces from Australia]]
==References== {{Portal|Biography}} {{Reflist|30em}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Chisholm, Keith Bruce}} [[Category:1918 births]] [[Category:1991 deaths]] [[Category:Australian World War II flying aces]] [[Category:People educated at Newington College]] [[Category:Military personnel from Sydney]] [[Category:Recipients of the Distinguished Flying Medal]] [[Category:Recipients of the Military Cross]] [[Category:Royal Australian Air Force officers]] [[Category:Royal Australian Air Force personnel of World War II]] [[Category:World War II prisoners of war held by Germany]]