Douglas Bader
Steve Platt
Douglas Bader was a model national hero. At the age of just 21, as a young officer in the Royal Air Force, he had both legs amputated after he crashed his aeroplane, but through sheer guts and determination he learnt to walk again. Then, after being allowed to rejoin the RAF at the outbreak of World War II, he went on to become Britain’s best-known pilot – the most famous of ‘the few’ who helped save their country during the Battle of Britain.
Nor did Bader’s heroism end there. When his plane came down in France on 9 August 1941, he didn’t sit out the rest of the war quietly in a prisoner-of-war camp. Instead, his constant attempts at escape, despite his disabilities, led to his incarceration at Colditz Castle – the special German prison for officers who were repeat escapees, which famously had more guards than prisoners.
Yet Bader was also a controversial character. Loathed as much as loved by those under his command, he was a man of strong ideas who didn’t always follow orders.
You knew you were flying with an ace in every sense of the word, a bloke who knew exactly what he was doing, who was on the ball, was afraid of nothing, and a great leader.
Sir Alan Smith CBE DFC, flight lieutenant
He was a bully. But we’d got a war to win. We just got on with it and ignored him.
George Reid, ground crew
Early ambitions
Douglas Robert Steuart Bader was born in London in 1910, the son of a soldier who died in 1922 of shrapnel wounds received in World War I. His childhood heroes were the fighter aces from that war, and from an early age, he was determined to become a pilot himself.
After winning a scholarship to St Edward’s School, Oxford, he gained a place at the RAF training college at Cranwell, where he excelled in sports, becoming a boxing champion and captain of the rugby team. He went on to play rugby as fly half for Harlequins and was widely tipped for an England cap.
In 1930, he graduated from Cranwell as a pilot officer. A year later he was selected to fly in the elite RAF aerobatic team. Its precision stunts and choreographed displays provided one of the greatest spectacles of the age, and in June 1931 at the Hendon air show, Bader’s performance was described in the press as ‘the day’s best event’.
‘Crashed … Bad show’
But while Bader had the talent to be an outstanding aerobatic pilot, he didn’t have the discipline. In particular, he repeatedly disobeyed orders about low flying, for which he received several reprimands. He ignored them, to his lasting cost.
On 14 December 1931, as he approached 500 hours solo flying, he responded to a civilian pilot’s taunt (or, perhaps, dare) by performing one of his specialities – slow rolls at very low altitude – in his British Bulldog fighter. Regulations forbade this manoeuvre below 1,000 feet (305 metres); Bader attempted it below 30ft (9m). His left wing clipped the ground and he crashed.
Miraculously, he was not killed outright. But his right leg was amputated above the knee that night, and his left below the knee a few days later. ‘Crashed slow-rolling near ground,’ he wrote in his log book. ‘Bad show.’
Recovery and return
Taken to Roehampton Hospital, even then famous for its work with amputees, Bader’s sheer guts and determination enabled him to learn to walk again. But, invalided out of the RAF, he became a clerk with the Asiatic Petroleum Company. ‘He was bored stiff,’ says his sister-in-law Jill Lucas. ‘It was absolutely the last thing he wanted to do.’
Fighting both his disability and depression, Bader married Thelma Edwards in 1935. But it was only with the outbreak of World War II that he got the chance to take up his first love – flying – again.
The shortage of experienced pilots and his own determination overcame resistance within the RAF hierarchy. Eventually he was given medical approval to resume flying and was assigned to 222 Squadron. He took part in the operation to evacuate British forces from Dunkirk, during which he made his first kill – a Messerschmitt 109.
The most glamorous job in the war
The fighter pilots of World War II were the football or rock stars of their day. As one of Bader’s comrades, Wing Commander Paddy Barthrop DFC AFC, put it, ‘We were like John Waynes or David Beckhams in those days. Being a fighter pilot … was probably the most glamorous job – and the best job – in any of the three services.’
And Douglas Bader was one of the most glamorous of the lot. According to Jill Lucas, his sister-in-law: ‘There had never been a person with no legs flying, commanding a squadron, shooting down German aeroplanes. [The press] was extremely interested in all the Battle of Britain pilots. There were photographs of them all in the papers. Somehow it was so dramatic, the idea of them taking off every day and defending the country and having these battles and then coming back down again. It just caught people’s imagination. They were treated like gods, the pilots. They never had to pay for a drink. Everybody wanted them.’
Promotion and the ‘Big Wing’
Bader was then promoted to take command of 242 Squadron, a Canadian unit that had suffered heavy casualties in France. He cut through RAF bureaucracy to get the squadron operational, and in its first serious combat operation, on 30 August 1940, it downed 12 German aircraft in just over an hour. Bader himself shot down a Messerschmitt 110.
Later he helped to develop the ‘Big Wing’ strategy, which involved sending large numbers of RAF fighters in mass formation against the Luftwaffe. The strategy was successful in bringing down significant numbers of enemy planes (but often only after they had hit their targets), and it made such an impression on the Germans that they delayed indefinitely the invasion of Britain. However, it was criticised because of the time it took all the aircraft that made up the ‘Big Wing’ to assemble, and because it left targets at home vulnerable to German raiders.
He made me sick. I’ve never met such a self-opinionated fool in all my life.
John Freeborn DFC & Bar, wing commander
He was awesome, marvellous. I never met anyone with such charisma.
Max Williams, ground crew
Downed in France
By the summer of 1941, Bader was the fifth most successful fighter ace in the RAF, having shot down 23 German aircraft. He had also been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) and Distinguished Service Order (DSO) and, promoted to wing commander, had taken over the Tangmere Wing, comprising four squadrons. On 9 August, however, his run of successes came to an end when his Spitfire came down near Le Touquet, in northern France.
In Paul Brickhill’s biography, Reach for the Sky (1954), and in Bader’s own 1973 autobiography, the war ace blamed a mid-air collision with a Messerschmitt 109, which he said had clipped his aircraft’s tail. But his story has always raised questions, and recent research now suggests that he may have been a victim of ‘friendly fire’, shot down by one of his fellow RAF pilots after becoming detached from his own squadron.
The advantages of artificial limbs
Ironically, the fact that Douglas Bader had artificial legs probably saved his life. When his Spitfire went down over France, one of his feet became trapped beneath a pedal. If he hadn’t been able to detach his artificial limb and leave it behind, he would not have been able to bail out and parachute to safety.
It is also thought that the loss of his legs gave Bader an advantage over other pilots in combat. The high G-force produced in combat manoeuvres caused many pilots to black out as blood drained away from their brain to other parts of the body. Because he had no legs, Bader could sustain greater G-force without losing consciousness.
Replacement legs
Bader parachuted from his falling aeroplane and was captured and taken to hospital. But despite having left behind one artificial leg, trapped in his plummeting aeroplane, and damaging the other in the crash, he managed to escape with the help of a French nurse and a farmer who hid him in his barn. The Germans found him, however, and the farmer and his wife were sent to a concentration camp.
Bader himself was more fortunate. His flying abilities – particularly in view of his lack of legs – had earned him great respect among his captors. Indeed, General Adolf Galland, the German fighter ace, even notified the British about Bader’s missing and damaged prosthetic legs and offered safe passage for an aircraft to drop off replacements. Churchill arranged for them to be supplied – but the aircraft carrying them then continued on its mission to bomb the Germans.
After the war
After several more escape attempts, Bader was sent to the ‘escape-proof’ Colditz Castle, where he was forced to await the end of the war. On his release, he was promoted to group captain, leading a victory flypast of 300 aircraft over London. He left the RAF in 1946 for a job with Shell Aircraft, where he stayed until 1969, then joining the Civil Aviation Authority.
Bader published his autobiography in 1973, and was knighted three years later for the work he had done on behalf of other amputees. He died of a heart attack on 5 September 1982, aged 72, after speaking at the 90th birthday celebrations of Sir Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris at the London Guildhall.
A pilot later summed him up: ‘He was a not particularly pleasant man, by turns arrogant, obstreperous and egotistical, but [he] made use of those qualities to do things which lesser men didn't have a hope of doing. He was certainly not an angel, but he was remarkable.’
