LEGLESS PILOT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 March 1941, Page 9

LEGLESS PILOT

SQUADRON LEADER BADER ACHIEVEMENTS IN AIR FIGHTING. Squadron-Leader Douglas R. S. Bader, the legless pilot whose investiture by the King with the D.S.O. and D.F.C. is announced, leads a squadron of Canadians. Squadron-Leader Bader was a crack Rugby player and a stunt pilot when, in 1931, he crashed and was only saved from death by the amputation of both his legs. Nine months after that accident. he was equipped with aluminium legs, took a course in civil aviation, * and applied to be taken back into the ' service. He was refused. He took a job in an oil company, ' devoted himself to golf, to swimming, J and to squash. Likewise he danced— 1 usually with his wife whom he led to J the altar without the'aid of sticks. *- He applied to the Air Ministry to be taken back the day war broke out. "Let me fly single-seaters,” he said. He v was tested—he had to keep his elbows I on his knees, as, when he “blacks out” J in a turn, he has no automatic reaction 1 in his artificial limbs—and was passed. c They offered him the job of an air- a taxi man; but he wanted to be in the fighting line. Ultimately, he won his . point. He had a slight crash and his metal legs were bent. They were ham- Jmered out by the armourer in half 1 an hour and he was in the air again. I “Couldn't have done that with the old r ones,” he said. •- Squadron Leader Bader went from 1 pilot officer to flying officer to flight L lieutenant. He was made a squadron- J leader. One day they were flying at 1 15,000 feet; half a mile below them 1they saw a cloud of German machines - flying in from the sea. There were between 70 and 100 of them. Leading the squadron, Squad.-Leader Bader dived sheer, guns spitting. The Germans scattered. Three of them p climbed to dodge the attack but Bader t swerved in mid-air, zoomed up and I caught one of them point blank. A i three-second burst of fire cut the s machine to pieces. e Again Bader swerved, chased an- t other machine, which fled; but there ( was no escape. The eight-fold guns s whirred and the enemy plunged to s earth. He was attacked as he turned, j avoided the assault and counter- t attacked in turn, but the German pilot had had enough: he streaked for France and Bader had no fuel to chase r him. His squadron brought down 11 E machines that day and he now holds r the D.S.O. Mrs. Bader sews the D.F.C. f on to the uniform of every member of < the squadron who wins one—and her t needles are busy. r More, when Squadron Leader Bader t walked into a local inn every single r R.A.F. man got to his feet: not for his c railk —for his guts. t