Interview with Douglas Bader
Bob Cunningham met a number of the WW2 fighter aces. He interviewed them and published these interviews in ‘Code One’ the magazine of General Dynamics at Forth Worth, once the home of the B-24 production but now the center of the F-16 Production.
Sir Douglas Bader
After losing both legs in a crash of his fighter in 1931, Sir Douglas acquired artificial legs, learned to fly with them, and was later credited with 22.5 victories during aerial combat in World War II. In combat over France on August 1, 1941, he had a mid-air collision and was captured. In later years he was knighted for his work in helping the handicapped.
Cunningham: Sir Douglas, how did the aerial warfare of World War II differ from that of the First World War?
Bader: In my day - and in World War I days - you had to do the navigation yourself. You had to see the enemy, you had to get behind him, and then you had to shoot him down. But in World War I, a dogfight was with aeroplanes flying in small circles at 90 to 100 miles per hour. When World War II started, they said, ‘No, you’ll never do deflection shots at 200 or 300 miles per hour,’ like the Hurricane and Spitfire did. The fact was, World War II was just like World War I - except that the circles were bigger, that’s all. I read every book by McCudden and all these fellows, and I reckoned these chaps knew because they did it. All my fighting and everybody else’s subsequently was based on World War I, where the chap who got the surprise and the height had control of the battle, and the bloke who shot best shot them down. And of course the awful thing (I must say this because it always make me laugh)… In the far-off happy days of World War I, when they staggered off in these aircraft with open cockpits and no guns, they’d have a pop at each other with pistols. And they wouldn’t hit each other. And they’d say ‘Cheers’, and go back off to their bases. Then, of course, some shit invented a machine gun that fired forwards, and we started killing each other. There’s the trouble. You didn’t recognise the bloke, but you saw him. And of course, now … now you’re being shot by people you never see - by missiles - and it’s become too impersonal. But, I mean, everything I did in World War II in the way of being a fighter - attacking another fighter - was based entirely on World War I. Entirely on the McCuddens, the Richthofens.
Cunningham: Sir Douglas, which was the better fighter? The Spitfire or the Me109?
Bader: It’s a very interesting thing. Naturally, the Spitfire was better. The Spitfire was a stronger aeroplane than the 109. It would take more g and it wouldn’t … I mean, it would come flying back. Some of them almost had their fins shot off - or, you know, ammunition boxes knocked clean off, with a hole you could a body through - and it would still come back. But the 109 was a jolly good aeroplane. It was smaller, it was initially quicker on the dive, and we were quite sure it wouldn’t take the g’s the Spitfire would.
Cunningham: Did you ever do any air-to-ground work?
Bader: Oh yes. But the only air-to-ground I ever did was beating up E-boats in the Channel.
There was a lull after 1940 - after the Battle of Britain finished - and, we used to go off two at
a time. They used to call it peasant shooting, some of the blokes, because the French were on
the other side. But we used to go over and look for things, you know. You see, an E-boat was
great fun because they used to come through the Channel, escorting or something, and we
used to go and give them a squirt and shoot them up, and then they'd go away. It was great
fun. But that was the only air-to-ground I've done.
Cunningham: Does any one combat stand out in your memory over all the others?
Bader: Uh, yes, I suppose it does, really. Now I think probably my first Battle of Britain
contact was in August 1940, when I had just 12 aeroplanes. My squadron. I was leading, and
we got the absolute classic one. All the World War I methods were right in my mind. A large
formation of German aeroplanes was coming. We were warned. We had taken off and we
were vectored down south. They were coming in from the south and slightly west of south.
The sun was over toward the west and, what happened in those days, the chaps in control
would vector you . . . in other words, direct you .. .. so that you did a straight cut-in like that -
mind the angle - which was quite wrong, because you can get all sorts of wrong conditions.
And when I heard they were coming and they gave me a vector of 135 degrees, I thought,
"Right." And I turned Southwest, went up into the sun, and then I saw them. They were
coming in from there, and I got up into the sun and they never saw us at all. And we got 'em.
Dived straight into them and broke the formation up. It was the absolute classic. I mean,
Richthofen, uh, what' s his name, Rickenbacker, Bill McCudden - they would have all
approved of that one. And that is one I remember very well, because we got no coaching at all.
We knocked down twelve of them, and we didn't get a bullet in any of us. It' s always the early
one that one thinks of. Really, it was the absolute classic one - classic World War I. All the
things had been met: the sun, the height.
Cunningham: What, in your opinion, was the best of the German fighters?
Bader: Well, you see, I have no experience, because I missed the 190. I was shot down in
August, '41, and the last I had was their 109Fs with the Spitfire V and they were just about
marginal together, you know. There wasn't much advantage, except we could turn.
Cunningham: Did you ever engage your friend, Adolf Galland?
Bader: Adolf Galland? He was probably THE great German fighter pilot - and a great leader.
He was a great chap. A nice chap, too. And he was a good shot, and everything else. But you
see, we knew each other's name on the other side of the Channel, and, uh, it happened that his
wing was based in Visont, behind the line on the French coast. We always came in from
Tangmere on a course of about 100, 110 degrees straight over his territory, so his chaps were
always up. This happened two or three times a day - I mean everyday for a long while in 1941.
We didn't recognise his markings, but we knew it was his lot. We used to exchange bullets
every day from May 1941. But, he came to be a friend of mine, Adolf Galland, and we still
have arguments about the old days. He comes and stays with me, you know, and he's, uh, he's
a very . . . he's acquired a tremendous sense of humour. He's a very dear chap. I'm very fond of
him.
Cunningham: Did you ever engage anyone in a single combat that you thought might defeat
you?
Bader: No.
Cunningham: How many sorties did you fly a day?
Bader: Oh God, we used to do three or four a day. The Spitfire could take an awfully lot of
punishment. I mean, extraordinary. But I think, generally, if you think of some of the bombers
that got back, what they'd take if you didn't hit a vital spot. The German Ju.88 took a hell of a
lot of punishment, too. I tell you, it was their best aeroplane. A very strong aeroplane. You
could really fill it with the stuff
Cunningham: You were a very good shot yourself, weren't you?
Bader: I don't say I was as good a shot as Bob Tuck [RAF ace Robert Stanford-Tuck] but
then I was a better pilot. I wish he could hear that. I have told him several times, actually.
Sorry he's not here to hear that. The thing was . . . when he was in training he was almost
failed, and his instructor at the school said, "For Christ's sake, let's have another go-round and
we'll see what we can do." And he managed to pass. But, he was a very good shot. You see,
there were those fighter pilots who were bad pilots and good shots, and fighter pilots who
were bad shots and good pilots, and a rare combination of good pilots and good shots. My
final score was 22-and-a-half because myself and a friend of mine blew one aeroplane to
pieces, so we had one-half each. That's how that works out.
Cunningham: In your last combat, where you had your collision - would you give a brief
description of that combat?
Bader: Gee, it was my fault really, like all these things. When I lost my legs it was my fault.
The thing was, when I turned across, a 109 was on my right. I didn't think he was near enough or would do anything stupid, and my impression was that I hit him. Or he hit me, with his propeller, and took the whole back end of my aeroplane off, cause when I turned around . . . the aeroplane went down like that into, uh . . . it just sort of fell down. There was nothing on the stick at all.
And when I looked around as far as I could see, there was nothing behind the cockpit. In other words, you would turn and see the fin normally, and I thought, "The thing's gone!" Dolpho
said I was shot down, but the German Historical Branch . . . nobody can tell me. I then accused Johnny Johnson [Johnson, who was in Bader's squadron at the time, became the RAF's leading ace of WWII]. I said, "Well, you probably shot me down. You wanted a promotion, you know." I never to this day ... you know, a fellow could easily have shot me down, and at very close range with cannons, you know, knocked my back end off. But there it is. The fact was, it doesn't matter how it happened - there it was. I came down in a pretty steep dive, slightly turning to the right, and I pulled the hood off and got out. And having got out I wasn't free. I was stuck on the outside of the fuselage. My foot was evidently caught. My right foot had caught in some part of the cockpit. And there I was - hanging along the fuselage outside the aeroplane, and I couldn't get any further. Because of the buffeting I was really nailed against the aeroplane. A lot of noise of course. My helmet had come off and so on, and after what seemed like a very long time - it was probably only two seconds - I suddenly broke away from the aeroplane and pulled the parachute. I had a leather belt which holds this leg on around my waist. There's a hit of spring steel in the first hit, and what had happened, the belt had broken and luckily the leg went off through my trousers. And so I arrived with only one leg. But I arrived.
Cunningham: Later it was arranged for a spare pair of legs...
Bader: Yes. I'll tell you, the exact truth is the Germans came to see me and the fighter pilots, and I said to one who spoke English, "I've lost my right leg. Will you telephone England and have them send me my spare." I have a spare. I have four legs, actually. Two I wear and two spares, you see. And so he said, "Oh yes, we'll do that." And he came back - I think the next morning - and said they'd gotten a message on the International Wave Band asking to send me a leg out and they hadn't heard anything from them (the British). Well, it transpired ( I heard
this after the war) that they had offered a free flight to land at St. Omer airfield - while I was in the hospital at St. Omer - with my legs and they wouldn't shoot it down. And, uh, our blokes said, "Nonsense. We'll drop it, but not a free ride and all the propaganda they'd get out of that, you know." So they came over in an ordinary bombing raid and one fellow detached himself and dropped the leg at the St. Omer airfield. There's a picture in the book ‘Reach for the sky’. You see the aeroplane and a box coming down with flak bursting around it, like a land mine, and luckily they didn't hit it. That's how it happened. In the meantime, the Germans [Adolf Galland's people] had found this other leg and this fellow brought it in. It was a bit buckled around the foot and so on, and he brought it in and I said, "Look. This is how it works." And he took it back and they repaired it, and they brought it back to me. It made a hell of a noise. But, I mean, I could put it on and walk. And so then I walked out of the hospital
and tried to escape, with not a good result. I nearly did. If I had managed to be out for another hour, I think I could have made it.
Cunningham: What was your favourite method of attack?
Bader: Well, there's only one favourite method with fighter pilots - whether it's a bomber or
whatever - and that's to come up from underneath. You've got to get behind for obvious
reasons, so he can't see you, and you've got to be lightly underneath because then you have the
plan of the aeroplane, not firing at just a silhouette. And it was the same with anything,
whether it was a bomber or you were firing at engines or whatever you were doing. The
vulnerability was underneath. Of course the 109 was not particularly difficult to shoot down,
depending on how you rnaneuvered and so on. The pilot was sitting on an L-shaped tank. The
petrol tank was the same shape as the seat. Oh, they had armour plating and so on, you know,
but I would still keep my cheeks pretty tight if I was sitting on a petrol tank.
Cunningham: Do you have any advise for a designer of a modern fighter?
Bader: Yes. Build it strong so it won't break. That's all I want the modern fighter to be. That's
what they used to say in the war. And give us some manoeuvrability. That's what you want, really.
Cunningham: Who, among the other aces, do you have a great deal of respect for?
Bader: Oh, there were some wonderful blokes around. Sailor Malan. He died at an early age after the war from Parkinson’s disease. A personal friend of mine. A lovely chap and Bob Stanford-Tuck. He is still alive I'm glad to say. And
there were many of them. Stan Turner was a Canadian. He was with me for a long time. Johnny Johnson. These people, all from the war, have gone on and are doing pretty well, you now They were all ten years younger than me, and they're all now at the tops of their
professions doing jolly well. Oh, the names that one can think of without particularly remembering. Frank Carey is another one. He worked with Rolls-Royce after the war. He was a great pilot. Peter Townsend is in France. Another splendid chap. But, I say, there were so many of them. Many are still alive, and many more dead, which is a sad thing. The wonderful thing about the youngsters who died in World War II that one knew . . . it's not the fact they are dead, but that they went out on the crest when they were 22 years old, 23 years old, or younger, some of them. But they didn't know anything but flying and fighting, which they loved. And what I think, you see, what we say in the ceremony of the service to them, "They shall not grow old as we grow old. Age shall not wither nor the years condemn." One always remembers them as they were. You don't suddenly find some dreary old bum, like myself who's 72 years old with bags under his eyes and creases all over. That's what we finish up with. But it's such fun to remember them only when they were on the crest. It's a tremendous satisfaction - a feeling actually - that it's all right. That's what I feel about it.
[Editor’s note: Sir Douglas Bader - Commander of the British Empire (CBE)*, Distinguished Service Order (DSO), Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) - died September 5, 1982.]
(*Thanks to mr. Trevor Dennington for the correct information)
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Last updated 18.4.2008