Richard Hough
Born in 1922, Richard Hough enlisted with the Royal Air Force in 1941 and after undergoing training in the USA spent World War II as a fighter pilot flying Hurricanes and Typhoons. Following the war, he worked at publishers Bodley Head and then Hamish Hamilton, rising to the position of managing director of the children’s book division. His work as a publisher inspired him to turn to writing himself in 1950, and he went on to write more than ninety books over a long and successful career.
Best-known for his works of naval history and his biographies, he also wrote war novels as well as books for children (under the pseudonym Bruce Carter), all of which sold in huge numbers around the world. His works include The Longest Battle: The War at Sea 1939-45, Naval Battles of the Twentieth Century and best-selling biographies of Earl Mountbatten of Burma and Captain James Cook. Captain Bligh and Mr Christian, his 1972 account of the mutiny on the Bounty, was the basis of the 1984 film ‘The Bounty’, starring Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson.
He died in 1999 at the age of 77.