World War 1 chivalry amongst airmen. Noble. Honorable. Decent. Human.
“World War 1 chivalry amongst airmen. Noble. Honorable. Decent. Human.”
Herman Goring, head of the Luftwaffe, had been a WW1 fighter pilot and had flown with Manfred von Richthofen, the famous Red Baron.
Although he could be horrible in his treatment of civilians, as in the Ukraine, he was much more honorable with captured allied fliers.
As a result the Stalag Luft camps operated by the Luftwaffe gave prisoners better rations and greatly insured a prisoners chance of surviving the war.
One such prisoner was RAF Captain Douglas Badar. Badar had lost both legs in a training accident in 1931. Getting tin prosthetics made he successfully petitioned for reinstatement in the RAF in 1939 and returned to active duty. He claimed his first kill over Dunkirk as the British army was being evacuated.
Bader was shot down over France in 1941. In the process of baling out and trying to evade capture one or both of Baders prosthetics was damaged. When he arrived at the Luftwaffe prison camp he could barely wobble around.
The camp commander received permission from Goring to make arrangements for replacement legs for Nader.
The RAF and Luftwaffe made arrangements for a replacement leg to be dropped at a Luftwaffe airfield in France.
If the Germans had known Bader they wouldn’t have bothered as Bader took his duty to escape very seriously. So seriously that he was sent to Colditz Castle the place the most incorrigible prisoners ended up.