Douglas Bader: Sale of wartime treasures

Kyt · Feb 21, 2008

Daily Express: The World's Greatest Newspaper :: News / Showbiz :: £115,000 for Douglas Bader's fake leg and wartime Treasures

AN admirer of the legless fighter ace Douglas Bader really had to reach for the sky when he was determined to acquire a souvenir of his hero.

He paid £115,000 for an artificial leg and other memorabilia belonging to the legendary Second World War Spitfire pilot.

The buyer, an anonymous airline chief executive, snapped up a collection of more than 40 artefacts belonging to Bader when they appeared at auction 26 years after the great man’s death.

As well as the leg, he also bought tunics, coats and flasks belonging to Bader, plus parts of aircraft which he flew and two Red Cross parcels sent to him when he was a prisoner of war in Colditz.

Even Bader’s copies of the New Testament and the Highway Code of 1931 were included. The hero pilot lost both his legs in a flying accident in 1931 and was discharged from the RAF.

He courageously rejoined after the outbreak of war but in August 1941, after shooting 22 German planes out of the sky, he came down in flames and was taken prisoner.

As he tried to bail out, his right artificial leg became trapped in the aircraft and he only escaped when the leg’s retaining straps snapped.

Bader, whose remarkable life was told in the film Reach For The Sky, was treated with great respect by the Germans, who notified the British of his damaged leg and offered safe passage so that the RAF could drop a replacement.

Bader did not return the courtesy. He tried to escape from the hospital where he was recovering, and over the next few years made so many more attempts that the Germans threatened to take away his legs.

He was finally dispatched to the notorious Colditz castle, where he remained until it was liberated in the spring of 1945.

True to form, when Bader arrived in Paris he requested a Spitfire so that he could rejoin the fighting before the war was over, but he was refused.

The collection, sold by Eley’s auctioneers in Boston, Lincs, is believed to have come from a man in his 80s who bought the items from the daughter of Bader’s mess sergeant at RAF Duxford.

Eley’s are also selling Bader’s former home, The Old Rectory in Sprotborough, South Yorkshire. Offers are expected in the region of £900,000.

His car, a black 1963 Alvis which was restored for the Queen Mother’s 90th birthday celebrations, is up for sale too, with a guide price of more than £70,000.
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Douglas Bader: Sale of wartime treasures

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