"LEGLESS WONDER"

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 7, Issue 11, 1 October 1943, Page 2

"LEGLESS WONDER"

WING-COMMANDER BADER

NOW A PRISONER OF WAR

Forced down in a sweep over the English Channel over a year ago, Wing Commander Douglas Bader, D.5.0.. D.F.C., known to his great disgust as the "legless wonder," is now a prisoner of war in Germany. Whatever his future,, his name has passed imperishably into the annals of aviation. Since being a prisoner of war he has persistently tried to escape, and has been sent with a number of other "bad boys" to a castle on top of a hill, from which it is reputedly impossible to extricate oneself. He has already tried four times.

When he sets his mind, to a thing there is very little stopping him. When he took up golf never having swung a club on his own two legs, he stuck at it till his handicap came down to nine, which is. more than can be said of four-fifths of the golfers of the world. On slippery days he would fall completely over. Climbing in and out of bunkers was in itself an acrobatic feat. But. with all this he would play two rounds a day, carrying his. own clubs. Once he discovered that he played better shots when his ball was on an uphill lie. So he went along and

had half an inch taken off one of his legs to give him permanent, feeling of playing uphill.

Flyers said before the war that they would, sooner have almost anyone in the world chasing them in a fighter aircraft and what a shame it was that he would never be able to fly one. The fact that he was allowed to do so was a rare triumph of commonsense over red. tape.