World Battle Two flying ace Sir Douglas Bader might have been shot down by his personal facet, a historian has recommended.
The RAF Wing Commander had been introduced down and brought prisoner in France on August 9, 1941, as fighter squadrons escorted bomber on raiding runs into the continent.
Sir Douglas, a double amputee, misplaced each his legs in a pre-war flying stunt, however went on to win fame within the Battle of Britain, incomes a Distinguished Service Order and Distinguished Flying Cross.
Whereas the 1856 movie Attain For The Sky, primarily based on Paul Brickhill’s best-selling 1954 account of Sir Douglas’ exploits, depicts the pilot clashing with a German fighter over France, questions have been raised over whether or not this was actually what occurred.
Navy historian Andy Saunders, editor of German army historical past journal Iron Cross, wrote within the Express: ‘With no legs to propel himself, one in every of his prosthetic limbs turned trapped. Solely when its straps broke did Bader fall
‘And the one Messerschmitt downed that day? Its deeply buried wreck was found fairly just lately. Its tail was nonetheless intact. Within the warmth of battle, incidents of ”pleasant fireplace” had been frequent, with pilots underneath excessive stress.
Sir Douglas Bader with a distant managed spitfire in 1982: A hero to most of his males, Bader flew with 222 Squadron forward of the Dunkirk evacuation
Sir Douglas Bader together with his spouse on the theatre in London in 1969 – he campaigned for the disabled and within the Queen’s Birthday Honours 1976 was appointed a Knight Bachelor for companies to disabled folks
Group captain Douglas Bader seems to be at a portray of Reginald Mitchell – designer of the Spitfire – in 1957
‘They’d nanoseconds to resolve: kill, or be killed. And in opposition to shiny skies, the rear view of a Messerschmitt 109 is similar to a Spitfire.’
Mr Saunders wrote that no pilot might be ‘recognized as victor’ in taking pictures down Sir Douglas, regardless of ‘fastidious fight experiences’.
And the lone Messerschmitt that was misplaced is attributed to a different of Bader’s pilots, with the circumstances and site completely aligning with that pilot’s report of occasions.
Sir Douglas Bader at Biggin Hill Airshow in 1966
‘However, if Bader did not collide with a Messerschmitt, and if the Germans did not shoot him down, then what?’ writes Mr Saunders.
The fast hit that took his Spitfire out of motion was catastrophic, and if the tail and rear fuselage had been hit by cannon shells then it might properly appear to any pilot to have been a collision.
The German fighter ace Adolf Galland wrote his model of occasions within the 1953 account, The First And The Final. He mentioned that Sir Douglas had been shot down in a dogfight over Pas de Calais, however it was ‘by no means confirmed who shot him down’.
He provides that after he was captured Sir Douglas ‘notably wished to know’ who had taken him down, and it was an ‘insupportable concept’ that he might have been bested by a German NCO.
Mr Saunders writes that whereas the account in Attain For The Sky ‘can’t be relied upon for historic accuracy’, it does inform of Sir Douglas’s diving assault on a squad of Messerschmitts, setting one ‘properly ablaze’ and damaging one other earlier than two fighters turns to assault from the left.
On ninth August 1941 Douglas Bader was shot down over Le Tourquet. He was captured by German forces and despatched to the Colditz jail. He remained there till the top of the warfare (Image from the 1956 movie Attain for the Sky)
He then broke away however was hit, the account says, with one thing ‘holding his aeroplane by the tail’, and when he rotated in horror to see the entire rear of the aircraft ‘sheared off’, it appeared the second 109 ‘should have run into him and sliced it off together with his propeller’.
Because the warfare reached its finish, Sir Douglas wrote to Flight Lieutenant ‘Buck’ Casson in regards to the occasions.
Casson replied that he had watched Sir Douglas assault and break, he attacked two 109s flying collectively, however then left them for a single plane flying inland by itself.
He wrote that he fired upon ‘this boy who lastly baled out at about 6,000ft’, having misplaced the vast majority of his tail unit – an outline eerily matching what occurred to Sir Douglas.
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