Reaching for the sky: rubbing shoulders with a war hero

RAF Spitfires: the cover of Paul Brickhill’s biography of Douglas Bader

To many men of my generation, way into our 80s and beyond, the recent celebration of the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Britain brought to mind many familiar images: a camouflaged Spitfire streaking low over patchwork fields, machine guns blazing at an Me 109; massed bombers with swastikas on the fuselage droning high above the White Cliffs of Dover to the wail of air-raid sirens and crack of anti-aircraft fire; a flight of Hurricanes, trailing smoke, dropping down out of the murk to land on a windswept airfield on the south coast of England; Stukas screaming their banshee note as they dive-bombed a radar station; young men in bulky flying gear (Biggles, Ginger and Algy among them) drawing at a last cigarette in the mess, before striding out to the waiting machines, armed and ticking over on the tarmac.

This was the stuff of the films, books, comics and radio serials which formed a significant part of a schoolboy’s literary intake back in the early post-war years of the 1940s and early 1950s, and I was one of those schoolboys who lapped it up. The fighter pilots of the Royal Air Force (RAF) who flew against the odds in their superb aircraft and with such bold skill, were the great heroes of my impressionable youth.

One of those great heroes came to Hale School one day, when I was a student there. It was October 1956. The school was the ‘old’ Hale on Havelock Street in West Perth. The hero was Sir Douglas Bader, the famous wartime Hurricane and Spitfire pilot and fighter ace who had shot down twenty-six German aircraft, and who had become a Squadron Leader, a Wing Commander, a POW and a Group Captain. Even more famously he had achieved all these things after he had lost both legs in a flying accident in the 1930s and was now equipped with a pair of (what he called) “tin legs”.

 RAF ace Douglas Bader at the time of the Battle of Britain, on the wing of his Hurricane fighter

Bader was the subject of a best-selling and fulsome biography (Reach for the Sky by Paul Brickhill) of which I had a copy when I was a schoolboy and had read from cover to cover at least three times. The book was made into a popular film of the same name, which I also saw at the local cinema (I watched it again recently on late-night TV). It was one of those grainy black and white war films, typical of the time, but it was gripping and memorable … even if improbably starring Kenneth Moore as Bader. Moore had no credibility with me as a war hero, as I still looked upon him as the dotty eccentric tinkering with vintage cars in the comedy film Genevieve. 

When the war was won, and soon to become one of the most senior officers in the RAF, Bader was chosen to lead the Victory Flyover – a thousand aircraft, flying in formation across London to the cheers of the world.

A glimpse of the RAF 1000-aircraft flyover on VE Day, led by a single Spitfire, flown by Douglas Bader

By the mid-1950s the now Sir Douglas Bader had left the Air Force and become an aviation consultant for Shell Oil International. In 1956 he was on a world tour promoting the company, and he briefly visited Perth. Fortuitously, at that precise time Hale School’s athletics coach was the suavely handsome Frank Bird, a Hale School old-boy, formerly a champion sprinter, and great bloke.

It was fortuitous because Frank Bird’s day job was Senior Public Relations man for Shell Oil Western Australia, which made him responsible for Bader’s itinerary while Bader was visiting Perth. At short notice, he arranged for Sir Douglas to visit Hale and address the boys.

The whole school, staff and boys, mustered at an impromptu and excited assembly in the School Hall. At the mysterious signal known only to School Captains, our School Captain (Mike Beech) stilled the hubbub and called us to attention. A breathless moment later, in marched the Headmaster, Vernon  ‘Spud’ Murphy, accompanied by Frank Bird, the Great Man himself, and Mrs Bader. Spud had not had sufficient warning to dress for the occasion, and he shambled along in his usual Headmaster outfit of grey suit and tatty academic gown, garnished with chalk dust.

The VIPs passed close to where I was standing, and I was able to get a good look at them. Bader was a short, stocky figure, with dark crinkly hair and a lined face. His deep-set glittering eyes roved restlessly about the hall, as if (I thought) seeking a Hun in the sun. He was dressed in a dark civvie suit with ill-fitting trousers which concealed, we all knew, those famous tin legs, so palpably present, but unmentionable, in the assembly hall that day. He walked with a sort of rolling seaman’s gait, throwing out one leg and then kicking the other forward with each step. No wheelchair, no sticks. At the foot of the steps up to the podium, old Spud made a kindly gesture to take his arm. It was curtly rejected. A few steps up, Bader suddenly stopped. “I bet you all think I’m going to fall,” he growled. The assembled boys laughed shyly, seeming to admit that his supposition had been right. He didn’t fall, either going up or, later, coming down.

Bader as an executive of Shell Oil International, at about the time when I knew him.

Frank Bird briefly and respectfully introduced the Great Man, who then gave us a pep talk. I remember almost nothing that he said, but I recall that it was an uplifting life message, encouraging us to do our best, to seize the day, to overcome adversity, to be sure that whatever we did in life we could afterwards look ourselves in the face, to do our duty, to be loyal to our family, school and friends. It was the predictable sort of thing Great Men say when addressing schoolboys, and which generally goes in one lot of ears and out the other a moment later. Perhaps, as my wife remarked the other day when I was telling her this story, his words might have been more memorable if he had accompanied them by showing us the tin legs.

What I do remember is that he had one of those fruity, upper class English accents which so grate on Australian ears (as of course our accent grates on their’s).

And I have never forgotten the sensational finale to his speech.

Having completed his pep talk, he turned to Spud, paused theatrically and then in a ringing voice, and with the full authority of a Group Captain of the Royal Air Force, cried “… and so, in closing, I declare the rest of the day a holiday for the entire school!”

At this a tremendous cheer went up. Caps were thrown metaphorically into the air, and feet were stamped. However, Spud Murphy was more than equal to the occasion. Having blanched and muttered something under his breath, he gathered his moth-eaten old academic gown around him and gave the nod to the School Captain to call us to attention. This signified that the fun and games were over. The VIP party clambered down and marched out, glancing neither to left or right, be damned to Huns in the sun.

We didn’t see Sir Douglas again, but we did hear, a few minutes later after we had dispersed back to our classrooms, that Spud had issued his own order, boldly countermanding the Group Captain. The holiday was off.

Douglas Bader’s 1956 visit to the old Hale School in Havelock Street came from no-where, captured our intense interest for a day or so, and then was largely forgotten. In later years I read other books by people who had known and worked with Bader in the RAF during the war, and their views of him were less uncritical than those expressed in Reach for the Sky. His courage was undoubted, but he was a driven man, ambitious, arrogant and demanding, and he was a master of self-promotion.

But what the hell!

He had been a fighter pilot and a war hero, one of The Few to whom was Owed So Much, and he had overcome a terrible disability with an indomitable spirit. He had endured pain and fear and had met challenges way beyond my childish imagination. I was always able to forgive him his faults.

I was also grateful to Frank Bird and Spud Murphy for our fleeting exposure to the Great Man, truly one of the most memorable figures of the Second World War, the stuff of a lifetime’s memory ... even if we didn’t get that half-holiday which was our due.