| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Reach for the Sky: Story of Douglas Bader, D.S.O., D.F.C. (CASSELL MILITARY PAPERBACKS) for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Book Description
The bestselling story of Britain's most courageous and most famous flyer, the Second World War hero Sir Douglas Bader.
Product Description
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.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
If one man truly embodied the motto of the Royal Air Force, it was Douglas Bader. The basic outlines of his story are known: pilot loses legs, goes on to become an ace in the Second World War, only to be shot down and spend the rest of the war in captivity. But what is not so well-known is Bader's struggle from his pre-war flying accident in which he lost his legs to "reach for the sky" once more. Brickhill strikes just the right balance in describing Bader's life--each part is detailed but not too much that the reader gets bogged down. Bader's rehabilitation is truly inspirational. Bader lived in a time when modern prosthetics were in their infancy. People then had a hard enough time just learning to live with them and do every day tasks--Bader was determined to drive and fly again. And he did. It is some mark of the man that when Bader was freed by Allied forces, his first request to the RAF was to find a flying squadron and get back to the war before it ended. Brickhill's account on suffers from two minor points. First, it was written in the 1950s. Bader died in 1982. This edition sorely needed a forward or epilogue written by an intimate or a historian which highlighted the man's life afterwards. The second point is that Brickhill's account is slightly dated in tone. For instance, in his relating of Bader's courtship of his future wife, whom he met while she was a waitress, Brickhill felt compelled to explain to the reader that his wife was only working as a waitress to get over a lost pet! (Working as a waitress apparently was not something a "respectable" woman would do!)
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The stirring story of the war hero, Douglas Bader, who lost both legs in a plane crash before the war but came back to become one of the great flying aces of the Battle of Britain. This respectful biography does not disguise the fact that Mr Bader must have been a forceful, difficult personality to deal with. The Germans who imprisoned him after he was shot down certainly found him hard to cope with. After numerous escape attempts they resorted to taking away his artificial legs, and eventually sent him to the POW camp for perennial bad boys, Colditz. After the war Bader went on to a successful career with a petroleum company and continued to fly his own plane all over the world. This is not a dirt-digging, exposé biography such as is fashionable in these days of media overload, but it is a bare-bones, well written story of a remarkable man's remarkable life.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Follow Douglas Bader from the trauma of his near-fatal flying accident to the skies of southern England and the hilarious escape of this legless man from POW custody.I met Douglas Bader in the 70's and can understand why he was an inspiration to RAF pilots and disabled people everywhere.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Inspirational read
I knew, before I opened the book, that I would read about Bader losing his legs and finding a way to live the rest of his life with artificial limbs. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Tom James
So good we're fighting to read it!
Bought as a Christmas present for my Dad. Previously I was vaguely familiar with Bader's story, but I read the first few chapters of this and my Dad and I are now having to share... Read more
Published on 9 Jan 2010 by E. Drinkall
A true hero
I 1st read this book when I was in my teens, I am now in my 30's and it's still a great read. It's the kind of story that makes you realize what we as individuals are capable of... Read more
Published on 16 Jun 2009 by edzshed
A truly amazing man
I first read this book as a child and it totally captured my imagination. I re-read it so many times that the book eventually fell apart. Read more
Published on 5 Dec 2007 by Lizzie Ward-Holmes
An inspirational man
The true story of a remarkable man who epitomises the grit and sheer bloody minded determination of the Brits during the Battle of Britain and there after. Read more
Published on 13 Mar 2007 by David I. Howells
a hero of heart and metal
A wonderful story of a man that knows his dream and goes all the way to make it come true. The story is fluent and very readable - I enjoied reading it again and again. Read more
Published on 9 Oct 2002 by Ido H. Rosenthal
a brillaint example of courage & endurance
This book cronicles the life of a great pilot & a great leader of men, his strugles & his acheivements in life over the german pilots & over the german gaurds his... Read more
Published on 30 Oct 2000
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Biography > Film, Television & Music > Music
- Books > Biography > Historical > Britain > Military
- Books > Biography > Historical > Countries & Regions > Europe
- Books > Biography > Political > Britain > Prime Ministers
- Books > Biography > War & Espionage > Air Force
- Books > Biography > War & Espionage > World War II
- Books > History > Britain & Ireland > Ireland
- Books > History > Military History > Armed Forces > Air Forces
- Books > History > World History > World War II 1939-1945 > Battles & Campaigns
- Books > History > World History > World War II 1939-1945 > Biographies & Memoirs
- Books > Science & Nature > Engineering & Technology > Military & Naval > Military Aircraft
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
