LETTER OF THE MONTH
FIELD POST
‘Britain at War’ Magazine, PO Box 380, Hastings, East Sussex, TN34 9JA
Dear Sir - I read with interest your recent feature on Douglas Bader and the theory of his downing over France in August 1941. I think the case put forward is really a very strong one, and likely the most plausible of all explanations given the facts and information so succinctly advanced in the feature. But there is another credible possibility; that is, that Douglas Bader simply lost control of his Spitfire. And it really isn’t such a silly suggestion.
During the 1980s and 90s I was involved in research into high speed stalls in aircraft and looked at the Bader case wondering if this could have been the cause of his demise. It could well have been.
In early 1941, Plt Off Peter Brown was attacked in his 41 Sqn Spitfire by Me 109s at 25,000ft over Dover and pulled hard into a climbing turn when he heard a loud bang and a clattering noise along the fuselage, causing the aircraft fall out of control as he temporarily blacked out. Not unreasonably, and when he came-to a few moments later, he thought that he must have been hit but regained control and flew home. On his Spitfire, no evidence of any hits coul…
