08/20/2026
"Legless ACE"
On August 9, 1941, RAF fighter ACE Douglas Bader—who famously flew despite having lost both of his legs in a pre-war air crash—was brought down over France.
So, who shot down douglas bader?
There is no definitive answer to who brought down Douglas Bader on the 9 August 1941.
Bader himself believed his Spitfire had collided with a German Bf 109 during combat over France. However, later research found no German Bf 109 loss that fits such a collision.
One of the strongest modern theories is that Bader was accidentally shot down by another RAF pilot, Flight Lieutenant “Buck” Casson of No. 616 Squadron. Casson reported firing at what he believed was a Bf 109 and seeing its tail come off and the pilot bail out—details remarkably similar to what happened to Bader's Spitfire. This remains unproven, however.
German pilot Feldwebel Max Meyer of JG 26 also claimed a Spitfire that morning and has sometimes been suggested as Bader's victor, but the available German and RAF records don't establish that conclusively.
So the best answer is: Bader may have been shot down by friendly fire from Buck Casson, but we don't know for certain.
As Bader fought to bail out of his spiraling Spitfire, one of his artificial legs became trapped in the cockpit. He only managed to break free and parachute to safety because the leather retaining straps snapped, leaving the leg behind in the wreckage.
Bader was captured and taken to a German hospital in Saint-Omer, France. When Adolf Galland, who was commanding the nearby Luftwaffe fighter wing Jagdgeschwader 26, learned that the famous "legless ace" had been captured, he sent his personal staff car to fetch Bader from the hospital to host him at his airfield headquarters.
The Lavish Reception and the Bf 109 Cockpit
Galland and his officers treated Bader with immense respect, sharing tea, drinks, and to***co. During the visit, the two aces debated the relative merits of British and German fighter planes. Galland even allowed Bader to sit in the cockpit of his personal Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter.
While sitting in the aircraft, Bader half-jokingly asked Galland if he could take off to "do just one circle over the airfield". Galland laughingly denied the request, replying that if he allowed it, he would have to chase Bader down and shoot at him again, which he didn't want to do. (Unbeknownst to Bader, a German officer was quietly keeping a pistol trained on him the entire time he was in the cockpit just in case he actually tried to start the engine).
Arranging Safe Passage
During their chat, Bader mentioned that he desperately needed his spare prosthetic leg from England. Galland, with permission from Luftwaffe high commander Hermann Göring, used international radio channels to notify the RAF of Bader's situation.
Galland offered safe passage for a British aircraft to drop off a replacement leg. The British government, wary of giving Germany a massive propaganda victory by participating in a purely "humanitarian" truce, instead tacked the drop onto a scheduled bombing mission over northern France. On August 19, 1941, an RAF bomber parachuted a box containing Bader's spare leg directly into the designated area—an operation nicknamed "Operation Leg".
The Aftermath and Lifelong Friendship
True to his relentless nature, Bader immediately used the newly delivered leg to attempt an escape. He tied bedsheets together, climbed out of a hospital window, and hid at a local French peasant’s home before being betrayed and recaptured. He proved to be such an aggressive and persistent escape risk that the Germans eventually transferred him to the "escape-proof" Colditz Castle, where he spent the remainder of the war.
Despite Bader's deep hostility toward the N**i regime during his captivity, he never forgot Galland's chivalry. After Germany surrendered in 1945, Galland was held in a British military detention camp. Bader drove to the camp, demanded to see Galland, and presented his former captor with a box of rare ci**rs as a thank-you.
The two men remained incredibly close friends for the next 40 years. They traveled together, attended aviation events, and when Douglas Bader passed away in 1982, Adolf Galland traveled to England to attend his funeral.
