LEGLESS PILOT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24421, 5 October 1940, Page 13

LEGLESS PILOT

There can be no secret about the identity of the legless Hurricane pilot who recently shot down a Dornier 17 states an English journal. Everybody who was in the Air Force or who was interested in Rugby football eight or nine years ago knew D. R S. Bader the Harlequins and Royal Air Force fly-half, whose crash robbed him of his legs, cut short a brilliant Service career, and destroyed good prospects of an English cap. Bader. now presumably a squadron-leader—he is described as leading a Canadian squadron—must be the only completely legless Air Force officer to pilot a machine in action. But a few years ago there was a squadron-leader commanding a balloon unit who, in spite of having

one artificial leg, was allowed to keep in training by "limited flying" of a few hours a month. He wore a plain wooden peg-leg—he was known to the Service as "Peggy"—which he inserted into a cylindrical cigarette tin screwed to his rudder bar. He drov? a big car. too. but claimed that flying was much easier. This officer did not learn to fly until he had lost his leg: he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps during the last war after ho had become no use to a marching regiment, found observing too dull, and insisted on a flying course.