Douglas Bader "This is your life"

[Amused2death]

Didn't quite know where to post this, but thought it worth sharing.

Douglas Bader on "This is your life".

https://youtu.be/4408_DJOu3I

Now I'm sure he had his faults, but no-one can say he didn't have an interesting life.

[FourWheelDrift]

They had a show for Leonard Cheshire VC too.

The New Zealand version had Charles Upham, the only combat soldier to get the VC twice.

[Eric Mc]

FourWheelDrift said:

They had a show for Leonard Cheshire VC too.

The New Zealand version had Charles Upham, the only combat soldier to get the VC twice.

"They don't like it, Upham" - said his sidekick, Corporal Jones

[and31]

Bader was renowned for being unpleasant to say the least,as I’m sure everyone knows.my mother worked for someone for many years who met him whilst he was in stalag luft 3 briefly.he couldn’t stand him,and neither could anyone else!!
But what an inspiration for disabled people he must have been back in the 1940s.

[overunder12g]

My father served with him in WW2 and said he was pretty terrible in all.

[Terra1]

Lots of Bader history round here, I live on the site where he lost his legs (still not found them).

[anonymous-user]

Amused2death said:

Didn't quite know where to post this, but thought it worth sharing.

Douglas Bader on "This is your life".

https://youtu.be/4408_DJOu3I

Now I'm sure he had his faults, but no-one can say he didn't have an interesting life.

28:30 Adolph Galland appears with some great anecdotes and they’re old mates.

[aeropilot]

El stovey said:

28:30 Adolph Galland appears with some great anecdotes and they’re old mates.

Galland was a much closer friend with Bob Stanford-Tuck up until RST passed away.

[tvrolet]

My wife's father was in a prison camp for a time where he was captured (with the 51st Highland Division famously sacrificed to protect Dunkirk) and always maintained Bader was considered an arse by everyone in the camp.

[Geneve]

I've met him.

He used to keep his (Shell's ?) Beech Baron G-APUB at White Waltham, where I had a holiday job. He used to phone up and tell me to get the met for Hurn, or somewhere, which I used to write down (not easy) and give him when he arrived. No pleasantries, just abuse about my handwriting, usually.

Always thought Kenneth More was mis-cast as Bader - should have been played by the grumpy actor Patrick Magee - who he resembled.

Edited by Geneve on Wednesday 14th August 13:50

[Halmyre]

There's a story about a fellow inmate at Colditz assigned as Bader's 'batman'. He got the chance to join the escape committee, with a possibility of making a break for it himself, but Bader vetoed it. After the camp was liberated and they were flown back home, Bader phoned him up and demanded to know where his spare legs were. "I haven't got them", he replied, whereupon Bader called him something unprintable and slammed the phone down.

[Seight_Returns]

There's a parallel thread on Pprune which also makes reference to how Bader's batman ended up in Colditz with him.

[FourWheelDrift]

Seight_Returns said:

There's a parallel thread on Pprune which also makes reference to how Bader's batman ended up in Colditz with him.

Was it something along the lines of, sending a message from Colditz back home to his batman at RAF Tangmere demanding his spare suit for which his batman had to bring it personally to Colditz?

[Seight_Returns]

Not that story - the one I'm referring to was when the Germans offered to release his Batman (Alex Ross) from Colditz on account of him being a non-combatant, but Bader allegedly refused to let him leave. The story (as well as the one you refer to) is in Ross's obituary.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/144219...

Bader's Wikipedia entry makes interesting reading - particularly the bit where the Luftwaffe offered Bomber Command safe passage to air drop a replacement prosthetic leg for Bader - the RAF apparently took up this offer, and also subsequently took advantage of the situation to fly on and bomb a power station in Occupied France !! All's fair and all that .............