Douglas Bader was born on Feb. 21, 1910 to an upper class British family. His father was wounded in WWI and died in 1922. Douglas went to fine schools, but was not focused on academics. He was much more interested in athletics like rugby and cricket where he excelled. He was often in trouble when he was growing up and felt rules were made to be broken. In his teens he became interested in flying. When he was 18, he went to flight school and by age 20 he was a pilot in the Royal Air Force. He often violated safety regulations by doing stunts and aerobatics to show off. On Dec. 14, 1931, he was goofing off and crashed. Both legs had to be amputated. He was fitted with artificial legs and was soon walking again. He refused to use a cane. He went into private business, but was determined to return to the RAF. He was able to pass the physical and demonstrated that he could still fly, but he was declared retired. As WWII approached, he was able to get himself reinstated because Britain needed every good pilot it could find. He shot down his first German plane during their invasion of France. He showed such good leadership traits that he was given command of a squadron that had low morale because of losses in France. Bader hit his stride during the Battle of Britain. His score reached 22 kills. He was a proponent of the controversial “big wings” theory which involved gathering a large number of fighters before wreaking havoc on German bombers. The problem was it took time to gather the planes, meanwhile the German bombers might reach their target. On August 9, 1941, he was shot down over France. Most likely, he was shot down by another British pilot who mistook him for a German. He parachuted but lost one of his legs. The Germans captured him and took him to a hospital (the same one that his father died in). He was befriended by Germany’s most famous ace, Adolf Galland. Galland arranged for a British plane to drop another artificial leg. Bader spent the rest of the war in several POW camps, ending up in the infamous Colditz camp. He made numerous attempts to escape. It go so bad that the Germans took his legs away at night. When he wasn’t plotting an escape, he occupied himself with “goon-baiting” which meant harassing the guards. He was released after the war and returned to flying. He wrote a bestseller entitled Reach for the Sky and a very popular movie was made with that title. He was knighted and died in 1982.
https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/fighter-ace-douglas-bader-the-rafs-legless-legend/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Bader
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