When Wing Commander Douglas Bader was downed over France on 9 August 1941 he lost one of his artificial legs as he abandoned his Spitfire and descended by parachute. To aid the welfare of their famous prisoner, the Germans signalled the RAF that an aircraft delivering a spare leg would be granted safe passage. In the event, a spare leg was later dropped during a bombing raid as Andy Saunders explains.
Dropping Douglas Bader’s Spare Leg: 1941
As a Prisoner of War with artificial legs it must have seemed to the Germans, initially at least, that Douglas Bader was a prisoner who would pose little risk of escape. After all, walking for any distance could be problematic for him. Not only that, but how could he climb fences or walls or scramble through tunnels with tin legs? And if he did get out, then his distinctive stance and gait would surely give him away. It wasn’t very long, though, before Bader showed his true colours; determination to succeed, come what may.
Nevertheless, he would need a pair of fully functioning artificial legs if he was to even be comfortable in a POW camp – let alone try to get away. And the problem with all of this was that during the escape from his Spitfire he had lost one of his artificial legs.
