Douglas Robert Steuart Bader

Douglas Bader was among the most celebrated fighter pilots of the Second World War, remarkable for having flown and fought after losing both legs. A peacetime RAF officer, he crashed during low-level aerobatics in December 1931 and had both legs amputated; invalided out of the service, he taught himself to fly again on artificial legs. When war came he was accepted back into the RAF and by 1940 was leading a fighter squadron. Through the Battle of Britain he became a forceful advocate of the massed “Big Wing” tactic and a leading ace. In August 1941 he was brought down over German-occupied France and taken prisoner; his repeated escape attempts eventually saw him confined in Colditz, from which he was liberated in 1945. He left the RAF as a group captain, was later knighted for his work on behalf of disabled people, and died in 1982.