Douglas Bader mystery

very interesting. there's a map of lamsdord on that site which shows the camp subdivided into various sections which supports the idea that there might be an raf area. one story I've found said the raf section was in the middle "as the germans thought the raf men were more ontelligent and so more likely to escape" and there is onw section surrounded on all sides in the map


http://www.pegasusarchive.org/pow/S344/PicSt_344_Map.htm


britinafrica - can't see letter adds anything. there clearly is a question whether it did or even could have happened and the rest is just supposition

There certainly had to be an RAF presence at the camp as I am reading several of their stories but so far I have seen nothing over the rank of Warrant Officer.

One report claims the RAF personnel in the camp numbered 600 which put them in the minority as far as the services went.
 
pilot officer chisholm there in june 42 according to that link.....

I'm sure raf were a minority group but it scotches the theory that bader shouldn't have been there and so it was part of some cover up.

I agree that there is a window of doubt in baders whereabouts but that's all there is as far as I can see.
 
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There are a few posts from Ken Williams at http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread292208/pg1 and of course from those who support him and those who are basically calling him a liar.

I have an open mind on the matter, could his story be true? Possibly. Could his story be fabrication? Again, possibly, but to what end what did he hope to get from it? Was he mistaken? Possibly.
 
I should imagine that even after measuring up for new false legs they would be very sore on the legs stumps for quite a while. Therefore German Doctors would surely have assisted in making them more comfortable
I did read a story a few years back of a British POW who was Douglas Baders batman come helper at Colditz. He was granted repatriation, but Bader put a stop to it saying he had to stick it out the same has him (Douglas Bader)
That does not sound as though Bader was sent to England to get a new pair of legs fitted.
 
There are a few posts from Ken Williams at http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread292208/pg1 and of course from those who support him and those who are basically calling him a liar.

I have an open mind on the matter, could his story be true? Possibly. Could his story be fabrication? Again, possibly, but to what end what did he hope to get from it? Was he mistaken? Possibly.

I would agree and the few threads I have read on the issue seemed very polarised, personally I do find it hard to believe and if I was to take a guess I would probably put it down to a "big fish" story that he lost control of, he wouldn't be the first person to embellish his past nor would he be the last.

That being said there are some parts of the story that appear true/accurate so I would put it in the category of "needs more validation".

I can't understand why people are getting on his case about it though no matter what we think it is a story that none of us can prove or disprove and he has put in the service so let him have his memories who knows maybe one day he will find the missing proof.
 
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I would agree and the few threads I have read on the issue seemed very polarised, personally I do find it hard to believe and if I was to take a guess I would probably put it down to a "big fish" story that he lost control of, he wouldn't be the first person to embellish his past nor would he be the last.

That being said there are some parts of the story that appear true/accurate so I would put it in the category of "needs more validation".

I agree. reading the ats pages I get a sense that kenneth williams is coming from a position of wounded pride whereas most of the anti argument seems logical which makes me wonder why he gets so angry - theres a lot of ranting and a lot of his posts have been deleted or banned. I think there is a lot of mileage in the suggestion that he has told everyone for years how he did this and when he found out he couldnt have he's gone looking for a way to explain it. the letter britinafrica quoted seems to show a closed mind
 
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I agree. reading the ats pages I get a sense that kenneth williams is coming from a position of wounded pride whereas most of the anti argument seems logical which makes me wonder why he gets so angry - theres a lot of ranting and a lot of his posts have been deleted or banned. I think there is a lot of mileage in the suggestion that he has told everyone for years how he did this and when he found out he couldnt have he's gone looking for a way to explain it. the letter britinafrica quoted seems to show a closed mind

I can certainly understand how he could get angry, he is trying convey his story and people are calling him a liar after a while frustration sets in and then anger usually follows.

As for closed minds well lets face it most online arguments end up with two sets of closed minds as each side becomes more and more entrenched and less and less open to change.

I haven't read the ATS thread, I started but it just seemed to become bogged down in over analysis of phrasing and intricate details which were for the most part irrelevant.

So for as much as I do not think he has proven his case beyond doubt I don't think it was shot down either, it just got side tracked into personalities.
 
I can certainly understand how he could get angry, he is trying convey his story and people are calling him a liar after a while frustration sets in and then anger usually follows.

As for closed minds well lets face it most online arguments end up with two sets of closed minds as each side becomes more and more entrenched and less and less open to change.

I haven't read the ATS thread, I started but it just seemed to become bogged down in over analysis of phrasing and intricate details which were for the most part irrelevant.

So for as much as I do not think he has proven his case beyond doubt I don't think it was shot down either, it just got side tracked into personalities.

certainly the case. the last few pages seem to get away from the personality clash and more on facts though. there is a clear disproof of a lot of the things ken williams cites such as secret papers. I'm happy to question accepted versions but this one really doesn't seem to have anything behind it at all

I can see why people would be upset by the story. bader is still a heroic figure and to mix him up with some sort of sculduggery could offend
 
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Yes buts lets be honest by page 5 it was pretty much a poisoned thread there was no coming back.

In my opinion I would believe the story quite happily if I could understand one thing, why would the Germans have sent a man who was nothing but a thorn in their side home for a couple of weeks, if I could answer that I would be happy.

I don't have a problem with his timeline as much as I don't understand the reason.
 
true. I agree - opportunity is possible but method and motive are far more doubtful. it wouldn't make a case for prosecution.

with these things it virtually impossible to prove one way or other. the only thing you can do is rate as probable or improbable. to my mind the balance on this is firmly towards improbable.
 
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pilot officer chisholm there in june 42 according to that link.....

I'm sure raf were a minority group but it scotches the theory that bader shouldn't have been there and so it was part of some cover up.

Not necessarily Bader should not have been there because he was a senior officer (Wing Commander equivalent of a Lieutenant colonel?) not because he was RAF, Lamsdorf was an "other ranks" camp as shown by there being no RAF officers listed as far as I am aware he should have been at STALAG Luft III and one thing I have learnt about Germans is that they follow the rules pretty well.

Also the fact that there was 1 man listed as being under arrest which I take as meaning in solitary (I may be wrong of course) at a time when he was listed as being in solitary.
 
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Not necessarily Bader should not have been there because he was an Officer not because he was RAF, Lamsdorf was an "other ranks" camp as shown by there being no RAF officers listed as far as I am aware he should have been at STALAG Luft III and one thing I have learnt about Germans is that they follow the rules pretty well.

Also the fact that there was 1 man listed as being under arrest which I take as meaning in solitary (I may be wrong of course) at a time when he was listed as being in solitary.

I think we have to allow for the fog of time. lamsdorf as a stalag luft (post 1943) was mainly an non officer camp though online sources talk about "mainly" nco being transferred from sagan. before that however and at the time of bader being there we don't have any classification of the raf part of the camp, that I've found. there is a record of at least three raf officers there at that time so it doesn't appear to be unusual. could it be something to do with the hospital? possible though unproven.

the man in solitary could be bader - its very tantalising. there is a reference on ats to bader at lamsdorf at this time speaking out in public about cooperation with the enemy. that could have been a blind of course but I suspect not as it is in character. allegedly this got him sent to colditz probably via the lamsdorf cooler.
 
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So once again we come back to why?

We have a case of him being in the right place to match the story, we have the right time to match his story and we have some circumstantial support in the form of the Red Cross document, to me the only thing that is missing is the why part.

With out it the story goes nowhere but it cant be disproven either.
 
So once again we come back to why?

We have a case of him being in the right place to match the story, we have the right time to match his story and we have some circumstantial support in the form of the Red Cross document, to me the only thing that is missing is the why part.

With out it the story goes nowhere but it cant be disproven either.

well, we've got him in a place where allegedly he's out of public circulation for a few days but ken williams does appear to have moved his dates around according to ats so its hard to say exactly that the timelines match as its all guesswork. there also appear to be problems with ken williams identification. he says, again on ats, that the man in liverpool walked with a stick. bader never did and the german wartime wanted poster for him from this time frame specifically mentions,'walks well without a stick'. that also seems to suggest a return for urgent leg work is unlikely given the availability of medical facilities at his loxation. I can't believe german engineers were not cabale of repairing or replacing the artificial legs either

as you say it really does come down to why and I can't see how that adds up.

it is a fascinating bit of detective work thoug
 
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If we can put variations in Baders time at Lamsdorf down to fog of time cant we do the same to minor changes in Williams story, recollection after 60 years is not always picture perfect.

One thing I would say about the stick argument is that while normally he didnt need a stick if his artificial legs were not fitted properly then he may well have needed a stick at that time.

But yes it is interesting how much information you can piece together from fragments the problem of course is that any one of those fragments can be wrong and there is just no way to verify it.
 
If we can put variations in Baders time at Lamsdorf down to fog of time cant we do the same to minor changes in Williams story, recollection after 60 years is not always picture perfect.

One thing I would say about the stick argument is that while normally he didnt need a stick if his artificial legs were not fitted properly then he may well have needed a stick at that time.

But yes it is interesting how much information you can piece together from fragments the problem of course is that any one of those fragments can be wrong and there is just no way to verify it.

absolutely. recollection is rarely perfect. I'm just a bit suspicuous of making facts from convenient coincidences. its a fair point that bader might have had temporary use of sticks though the wanted poster is strong evidence.

verification is almost impossible and stories often contradict one another. there is a story of one bader escape thwarted by a luftwaffe fighter pilot visiting him out of the blue and finding him absent but in just the last hour I've found two locations for the episode.

I'm still very sceptical of this story though. there really seems little more than a convenient coincidence to back it up.
 
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Found this indicating Bader was at STALAG Luft III in mid 1942...
In August 1941 Frank Hargreaves was moved to Stalag Luft 3 at Sagan in Poland and Bill followed in April 1942.
a09.01.27.47aw.jpg

Bill on the left
Frank describes life at Stalag Luft 3:
The huts had rooms each side of a central corridor, with a small room at each end. The larger rooms held about fourteen or sixteen men. That worked out at about one hundred and twenty officers per hut.
By now our ‘boffins’ had been hard at it trying to build a wireless set, and one very exciting day they succeeded with one officer attending each hut in turn and reading out the ‘One o’clock news’ from London. You can imagine the excitement, obviously suppressed; at least we now had some news from home and the morale of the camp increased still further.
About this time the famous ‘wooden horse’ escape took place. We got quite used to the sight of four or five officers struggling out of the small concert room with the vaulting horse, setting it up and commencing to take turns in jumping over it. In retrospect, I think that if I had been a German, I would have become suspicious of the fact that it was always sited in the same place, but that was typical of the German mind – always ‘correct’ in the right place.
Wing Commander Douglas Bader had now arrived in the camp, complete with tin legs and was a source of constant worry both to the Germans and indeed because of his ‘bloody’ attitude towards our guards, also to the rest of the camp, who naturally stood up for him in all his misdemeanours. He treated all Germans with complete disdain and did his utmost to be uncooperative.

We were delighted to learn one day that the Americans had entered the war and it was obvious that, notwithstanding all their victories, the Germans viewed the news and the future with apprehension.
Another Christmas passed by with no sign of an early release. When newcomers arrived in the camp and I told them that I had been a POW for two years they could not visualise how I had managed to survive and neither could I, although the initial homesickness had by now completely gone and I was in another world.

http://www.sulgrave.org/Bill Wootton/Bill Wootton 01.html


I agree I think this is an unprovable story, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.
:)
 
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I would add. .....but unlikely. I've had a look at reaxh for the sky and ross attended to bader on solitary in lamsdorf so his absence would have been noted, if hat is true. ross was treated badly by bader post war so I can't see why he'd stay quiet
 
Well having looked around the web it would appear that there is quite an industry sprung up attacking this guy and to be fair he does seem to be a grumpy old bugger that has given as good as he has received but...
I have read an early post of his and can somewhat sympathise with his frustrations, in it he pointed out that all he had were his recollections and was mainly looking for help verifying these recollections all he got in return were a couple of people (who have traveled from site to site with him) telling him he has no proof (something he knew).

So having read as much as I could find I have a feeling the guy is out by about 12 months and are in fact from 1941 not 1942 but that is just my feeling.
 
Well having looked around the web it would appear that there is quite an industry sprung up attacking this guy and to be fair he does seem to be a grumpy old bugger that has given as good as he has received but...
I have read an early post of his and can somewhat sympathise with his frustrations, in it he pointed out that all he had were his recollections and was mainly looking for help verifying these recollections all he got in return were a couple of people (who have traveled from site to site with him) telling him he has no proof (something he knew).

So having read as much as I could find I have a feeling the guy is out by about 12 months and are in fact from 1941 not 1942 but that is just my feeling.

fair points. I've been digging as well and it seems the central point is that he's never been prepared to accept he might have it wrong. he's then started looking to explain why which has led to a lot of conjecture and guesswork which detracts from any credibility. it seems to me he's got a lot of his personal back story invested in thus and he's just too proud to admit he was mistaken or foole.
 
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