Douglas Bader: A legendary man few have heard of

I stumbled across this man's story the other night; and I can't get it out of my mind.

Douglas Bader was one of the most successful British fighter aces of World War II.  He finished the war with 22.5 kills, despite the fact that he spent much of the war in German POW camps.

His aerobatics abilities were without peer.  He initially flew the Hawker Hurricane Mk 1, which was outdated even at the beginning of the war (it had a steel and wood frame, with a fabric skin), against faster, better-armed, more powerful all-steel-and-aluminum Messerschmidt ME-109s, and quickly rose up through the ranks to command a somewhat ragtag Canadian squadron, the 242.  The Canadians resented their new British commander, until they saw him fly; Bader whipped them into shape, and they went on to have one of the best kill ratios of any squadron in The Battle of Britain.  He was a proponent of the "Big Wing" tactic, massed formations of fighters, and he led formations of over one hundred Hurricanes and Spitfires against German attackers (early in the war) and then against targets within Germany.

He collided with a Messerschmidt over Germany and was captured in 1941.  After several escapes, only to be recaptured before he could get out of Germany, the Germans put him in the infamous Colditz castle prison.  He stayed there til the end of the war, when Colditz was liberated by the American First Army. After the war, he continued to work as a pilot for Shell Oil; he would go on to be knighted by Queen Elizabeth; and he would die at the age of 72 in 1982.

This is a remarkable life, and I've left out one small detail:

Douglas Bader was a double-amputee.  He had no right leg from just above the knee; and no left leg just below the knee.

And I'm not saying he lost his legs during the war.  I'm saying he started the war with no legs.



When he was a 21 year old RAF pilot, he crashed a biplane while doing acrobatics on a dare; and his legs were crushed beyond repair, given the state of medical technology in 1931.  They sawed his legs off, and thought he'd die.  He not only recovered, but he taught himself how to walk, without a cane, on what had to be very primitive artificial legs.  And he taught himself to fly fighters, despite the fact that the rudder was controlled with foot pedals.

Bader climbing into a Spitfire

Where do men like this come from?

And:  Do any still exist?

Bader flanked by pilots WL McKnight and GE Ball

They made a movie about him in 1951, in Britain.  This screams for an update.  But please, please, please:  Do not cast the malignant Scientologist dwarf Tom Cruise in the title role.