BADER NEEDS TOOLS

Greymouth Evening Star, 19 August 1943, Page 2

BADER NEEDS TOOLS

TO WELD A LEG

LONDON, June 27. Wing Cmdr. Douglas Bader,. D. 5.0., the legless fighter pilot, has just received a box of tools in his prisoner-of-war camp in Germany. But the enemy authorities will not be suspicious, for Bader has become his own “surgeon-mechanic” and the tools arc to help him with his artificial legs. “I am very knowledgeable about those legs,” lie said in a recent letter home, “and am the only one here who can do what is necessary.” The wing commander, according to the latest information from the camp, remains “a continual source of amazement” to his comrades because of the remarkable skill with which he has overcome his infirmity. But one of his artificial legs has given trouble because he could not be measured for it before it was made. Trying to rectify the difficulty he found the problem beyond local resources, so he wrote to his friend, Mr A. W. Shaw, managing director of J. E. Hanger and Co., of Roehampton, and asked urgently for assistance. He said, in effect: “The welding of one part appears to be essential, but there are no welding experts here and I shall have to do the best I can myself. Now here is a list of the things I am likely to want for various repairs, and if you could let me have them, with any advice, I should be grateful.”