Douglas Bader
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Sir Douglas Robert Steuart Bader (February 10 1910 (St John's Wood, London) - September 5 1982), was a successful fighter pilot in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War. Bader is upheld as an inspirational leader and hero of the era, not least because he fought in spite of having both legs amputated.
His first two years were spent in the Isle of Man, staying with relatives, then moved to India to be with his family again. They moved back to London when Douglas was 3. He went to Temple Grove Prep School, near Eastbourne, then to St Edwards School, Oxford, the same as Guy Gibson. Later, he was brought up in the rectory of the village of Sprotborough, near Doncaster in South Yorkshire. His step-father, Reverend Ernest William Hobbs, was the local vicar. His own father, Major Frederick Roberts Bader of the Royal Engineers, had died in 1922 of wounds from shrapnel he received in 1917. His mother, Jessie, re-married when she was 32, and Douglas was 12.
Bader joined the RAF as a Cranwell cadet in 1928. Bader was regarded as an above-average pilot and an outstanding sportsman, coming close to national team selection in rugby. He was commissioned as a pilot officer in 1930. On December 14 1931 he attempted some low flying aerobatics at Woodley airfield in a Bristol Bulldog fighter, apparently as part of a dare. The tip of the left wing of the plane touched the ground, causing it to crash. Following the accident Bader was rushed to the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading, where both his legs were amputated - one above and one below the knee. He left the RAF, but, equipped with artificial legs, he learned to fly again.
Upon the outbreak of war in 1939, Bader used his Cranwell connections to re-join the RAF, in spite of his disability. During the Battle of Britain he commanded a wing of fighters based at Duxford and as a close friend of Air Vice-Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory was an active agent in the Big Wing controversy. Later, he was to lead a series of offensive fighter sweeps known as CIRCUS operations over France. By the summer of 1941, Bader had shot down 23 German planes, the fifth-most prolific record in the RAF. On August 9 1941 Bader collided mid-air with a German ME 109 over Le Touquet. He was captured by German forces and sent to a number of POW camps and was finally despatched to the Colditz Castle prison. He remained there until the end of the war.
Returned to England, Bader stayed in the Air Force for a short period after the war, but left soon after to take a job at Royal Dutch/Shell. He resumed an enthusiasm for golf which had developed after his amputation, playing off a handicap in the low single figures - a level that only a very few able-bodied golfers reach.
Bader was knighted in 1976.
Bader's biography, Reach For The Sky, was written after the war by Paul Brickhill and became a bestseller. A movie of the same title was made in 1956 and starred Kenneth More as Bader.
One website recording the memoirs of a British navy medic reports this individual assisting Bader briefly while in England in 1942, contradicting the generally-accepted account of Bader's continuing imprisonment through 1941-45, though the individual concerned admits he has no hard evidence other than his own memories.
External links
- Medic's account of meeting Bader in 1942 (http://pages.zdnet.com/hookares/royal-navy-medic-1945/).de:Douglas Bader