Squadron Leader Anthony Orlando ‘Oscar’ Bridgman, DFC (4 June 1915 – 14 January 2006) was a bomber pilot of the Royal Air Force during the Second World War.

Bridgman was born on June 4, 1915, in North Stoke, Somerset, in the parish of Keynsham, spending the first five years of his life in Munnar, Southern India, where his father managed a tea plantation.

His cadre of fellow junior officers at Turnhouse included James Pitcairn-Hill and John Collier, to be joined in September 1937 by Guy Gibson who was assigned into Bridgman’s care and tutelage,[4] and would eventually become one of the most decorated World War Two British pilots.

83 Squadron was re-equipped with the new Handley-Page Hampden, a fast, twin engine, monoplane medium bomber carrying a crew of four, dubbed 'The Flying Suitcase' for its cramped interior.

Returning from a mining mission over the entrance to the Skagerrak Strait on the night of April 17/18 1940, Bridgman and Australian Flying Officer Ellis Henry Ross in a second Hampden performed a reconnaissance flight over the newly established Aalborg aerodrome.

In November, 1942, he made an unsuccessful attempt to escape by tunneling with a comrade, and as recorded on his POW internment card[17] was subsequently put under close confinement for ten days.

[18] His internment card portrays something of his character as the entry for his mother’s maiden name was given as Goring, a defiant misinformation referring to the famous World War I fighter pilot ace and prominent military leader Hermann Göring.

Eric Williams’ subsequent book of 1949, The Wooden Horse,[19] was made into a 1950 film of the same name, directed by Jack Lee and starring Leo Genn, David Tomlinson and Anthony Steel.

His various transfers after Stalag Luft III were not recorded on his internment card, but eventually Bridgman was among the many who were liberated by the Russians, and delivered into the hands of the Americans whereupon he was flown to Brussels.

Eventually returning to UK, Bridgman bought a small printing company in Guildford, Dramrite Printers Ltd., moving it to Long Lane in Bermondsey, London until it was sold in 1980.

83 Squadron in 1937, Bridgman was the last survivor; Leonard Snaith had died in 1985, John Collier in 2000, while Jamie Pitcairn Hill, Ellis Ross and Guy Gibson were lost in action during the war.