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.
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[Editor’s note: Sir Douglas Bader - Cavalier of the British Empire, Distinguished Service Order, Distinguished Flying Cross - died September 5, 1982.]
