He remained in France after the war, where, having attained the rank of major, he died in 1922 of complications from those wounds in a hospital in Saint-Omer, the same area where Bader baled out and was captured in 1941.

Bader was involved in these activities and was close to expulsion after being caught out too often, in addition to coming in 19th out of 21 in his class examinations; however, his commanding officer (CO), Air vice-marshal Frederick Halahan gave him a private warning about his conduct.

Bad show.In 1932, after a long convalescence, throughout which he needed morphine for pain relief, Bader was transferred to the hospital at RAF Uxbridge and fought hard to regain his former abilities after he was given a new pair of artificial legs.

During his convalescence there, he met and fell in love with Thelma Edwards, a waitress at a tea room called the Pantiles on the A30 London Road in Bagshot, Surrey.

A subsequent medical examination proved him fit for active service, but in April 1933 he was notified that the RAF had decided to reverse the decision on the grounds that this situation was not covered by King's Regulations.

[38] Against a background of increasing tensions in Europe in 1937–39, Bader repeatedly requested that the Air Ministry accept him back into the RAF and he was finally invited to a selection board meeting at Adastral House in London's Kingsway.

On 27 November, eight years after his accident, Bader flew solo again in an Avro Tutor; once airborne, he could not resist the temptation to turn the biplane upside down at 600 feet (180 m) inside the circuit area.

While patrolling the coast near Dunkirk on 1 June 1940[47] at around 3,000 ft (910 m), Bader happened upon a Messerschmitt Bf 109 in front of him, flying in the same direction and at approximately the same speed.

On 4 June 1940, his encounter with a Dornier Do 17, which was attacking Allied shipping,[49] involved a near collision while he was firing at the aircraft's rear gunner during a high-speed pass.

Despite initial resistance to their new commanding officer, the pilots (including such aces as Willie McKnight and Stan Turner) were soon won over by Bader's strong personality and perseverance, especially in cutting through red tape to make the squadron operational again.

[75] As a friend and supporter of his 12 Group commander, Air Vice Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory, Bader joined him as an active exponent of the controversial "Big Wing" theory which provoked much debate in the RAF during the battle.

Achievements of the Big Wing were hard to quantify, as the large formations often took too long to form up, over claimed victories, and too often did not provide timely support of the over-committed 11 Group.

It might well have been fatal had Park always tried to get his squadrons into "Balbos", for not only would they have taken longer to get to their height, but sixty or seventy packed climbing fighters could have been seen for miles and would have been sitting ducks for higher 109s.

Indeed, Adolf Galland and Werner Mölders complained about the elusiveness of Fighter Command and Park's brilliance was that by refusing to concentrate his force he preserved it throughout the battle.

[84][85] Stationed at Tangmere with 145, 610 and 616 Squadrons under his command,[86] Bader led his wing of Spitfires on sweeps and "Circus" operations (medium bomber escort) over north-western Europe throughout the summer campaign.

11 Group, Fighter Command, relented and allowed Bader to continue frequent missions over France even though his score of 20 and the accompanying strain evident on his features obliged Leigh-Mallory to consider his withdrawal from operations.

[106] On 9 August 1941, Bader was flying a Spitfire Mk VA serial W3185 "D-B" on an offensive patrol over the French coast, looking for Messerschmitt Bf 109s from Abbeville or Wissant[107][108] without his trusted wingman Alan Smith.

Smith, who was described by fellow pilot Johnnie Johnson as "leechlike" and the "perfect number two",[109] was unable to fly on that day due to a head cold, so was in London being fitted for a new uniform ready for his officer commission.

He levelled out at 24,000 feet (7,300 metres) to find that he was now alone, separated from his section, and was considering whether to return home when he spotted three pairs of Bf 109s a couple of miles in front of him.

At this point he decided it would be better to return home; however, making the mistake of banking away from them, Bader believed he had a mid-air collision with the second of the two Bf 109s on his right that were continuing straight ahead.

Part way out of the cockpit and still attached to his aircraft, Bader fell for some time before he released his parachute, at which point the leg's retaining strap snapped under the strain and he was pulled free.

Furthermore, Meyer mentioned that he had followed the downed Spitfire and watched the pilot bale out, something which seems to match this passage in Bader's memoirs: I was floating in the sunshine above broken, white cloud ...

Crucially, an entire paragraph, which mentioned specifically the tail coming off "a Bf 109" and the pilot struggling to get out of the cockpit, was completely omitted from the original source, still in the Casson family's possession.

[122] The quest to find Bader's Spitfire, W3185, shed light on the demise of another famous wartime ace, Wilhelm Balthasar, Geschwaderkommodore of Jagdgeschwader 2 "Richthofen", who was killed in action on 3 July 1941 when his Bf 109F crashed into Ferme Goset, Wittes, France.

Historians have also been misled as to the whereabouts of the Spitfire because of a mistake in the book Reach for the Sky, in which Bader stated his leg had been dug out from the wreckage but was damaged, indicating a definite crash site.

The Germans were less impressed when, task done, the bombers proceeded on to their bombing mission to Gosnay Power Station near Bethune, although bad weather prevented the target being attacked.

A staunch conservative, his trenchantly expressed views on such subjects as juvenile delinquency, capital punishment, apartheid (which he was in favour of) and Rhodesia's defiance of the Commonwealth (he was a strong supporter of Ian Smith's white minority regime) attracted much criticism.

During the interview, he expressed a desire to be Prime Minister, and listed some controversial proposals should the opportunity ever arise:[162] Bader was known, at times, to be head-strong, blunt and unsophisticated when he made his opinion known.

On 5 September 1982, after a dinner honouring Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris at the Guildhall, at which he spoke, Bader died of a heart attack while being driven through Chiswick, west London, on his way home.

Although Galland was on a business trip to California, he made sure to attend the memorial service held for Bader at the St Clement Danes Church in the Strand.