Good biography on Douglas Bader, a fighter pilot in WW II who lost both legs and still kept flying. ( )

What a story. He had great timing in some ways, terrible in others. It's probably best that someone let him fly fighter planes so he didn't turn his frustrated energies into something destructive. ( )

The bestselling story of Britain's most courageous and most famous flyer, the Second World War hero Sir Douglas Bader.In 1931, at the age of 21, Douglas Bader was the golden boy of the RAF. Excelling in everything he did he represented the Royal Air Force in aerobatics displays, played rugby for Harlequins, and was tipped to be the next England fly half. But one afternoon in December all his ambitions came to an abrupt end when he crashed his plane doing a particularly difficult and illegal aerobatic trick. His injuries were so bad that surgeons were forced to amputate both his legs to save his life. Douglas Bader did not fly again until the outbreak of the Second World War, when his undoubted skill in the air was enough to convince a desperate air force to give him his own squadron. The rest of his story is the stuff of legend. Flying Hurricanes in the Battle of Britain he led his squadron to kill after kill, keeping them all going with his unstoppable banter. Shot down in occupied France, his German captors had to confiscate his tin legs in order to stop him trying to escape. Bader faced it all, disability, leadership and capture, with the same charm, charisma and determination that was an inspiration to all around him.
During the war Paul Brickhill was shot down over German territory and sent to a prisoner of war camp. After the war he wrote about the numerous escape attempts in which he was involved in THE GREAT ESCAPE. REACH FOR THE SKY, and THE DAMBUSTERS RAID are his most famous works.

Each time I read this book I am overwhelmed by the Boy's Own enthusiasm that pervaded my early youth. But this reading was different. I picked up on numerous philosophical perspectives resembling Stoicism, confirmed by the quote from Hamlet at the end of the work: "there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so". There is so much of the history of the Battle of Britain that I did not know at the time of my earlier readings. With a better understanding of Leigh-Mallory's "big wing" theory, and Bader's part in it, made very interesting reading. Not that all agree with either the success of the theory or indeed the truthfulness of its successes in practice (see Tom Neil's comments here. Regardless, Bader's story is written in captivating style by Brickhall and still manages to excite this poor, brain-washed Colonial time and again. ( )

Douglas Bader did not let loosing one leg, and then another, stop him from flying a fight plane. Reading in between the lines one gets the feeling that he was not always a nice fellow. But certainly he had a very good sense of humour. A great biography written by Paul Brickhill, an Australian. ( )