August 9th, 1941, over northern France, a Spitfire piloted by Wing Commander Douglas Ber collides with a German Messid BF 109 during a dog fight.
Bad’s aircraft breaks apart.
He bails out, but one of his artificial legs catches in the cockpit and tears away.
He lands with only one prosthetic leg.
Hours later, Bad sits across a table from the German pilot who orchestrated the ambush that brought him down.
Lieutenant Colonel Adolf Galland, commander of German fighter forces in France.
Galland asks if Bart needs anything.
Yes, Ber says, I need another leg.
Galland makes an extraordinary offer.
He’ll ask the RAF to drop a replacement leg behind German lines during their next bombing raid.
He gives his word it won’t be fired upon.
18 years later, in 1959, these same two men stand together in London, not as enemies, as best friends.
They would remain so until Ber’s death in 1982.
41 years of friendship born from one encounter as captor and prisoner.
Douglas Robert Stewart Barter was born February 21st, 1910 in London.
He joined the Royal Air Force in 1928 as a cadet at the RAF College Cranwell.
Ber excelled as a pilot and was known for arerabatic skill and aggressive confidence.
Some called it arrogance.
On December 14th, 1931, everything changed.
While performing low-level arerobatics at Woodley Airfield near Reading, Bart’s Bristol Bulldog biplane clipped the ground during a slow roll.
The aircraft cartw wheeled and crashed.
Barter was pulled from the wreckage with catastrophic injuries.
Doctors amputated his right leg above the knee.
Days later, infection forced amputation of his left leg below the knee.
At 21 years old, Douglas Barter had lost both legs.
Most would have retired.
Barter fought to stay in the RAF.
He learned to walk on tin prosthetic legs.
He learned to drive.
He even learned to dance.
But the RAF medical board declared him unfit for flying duties and invalided him out in April 1933.
Ba spent the next 7 years working as a petroleum executive.
But when World War II began in September 1939, he lobbied relentlessly for reinstatement.
The RAF, desperately short of experienced pilots, finally relented in November 1939.
By summer 1940, BA was flying huracans with number 222 Squadron during the Battle of Britain.
His aggressive tactics and leadership earned him command of number 242 Squadron.
By 1941, he’d been promoted to wing commander, leading three squadrons on offensive sweeps over occupied France.
By August 1941, Bart was credited with at least 22 enemy aircraft destroyed, plus additional probables and damaged.
He was one of Britain’s most famous pilots, a national hero who’d overcome impossible odds.
On August 9th, 1941, Bada led a fighter sweep over northern France near Luk.
His formation encountered German fighters from JG26, commanded by Adolf Galland.
What exactly happened during that dog fight remains debated.
German records credit Gallen’s pilots with shooting down Ber.
British witnesses reported a mid-air collision between Boulder Spitfire and a BF-109.
What’s certain, B’s Spitfire broke apart.
The tail section separated.
Butter, trapped in the cockpit, struggled to escape as the aircraft tumbled toward Earth.
He finally broke free, but his right prosthetic leg attached to the rudder pedal tore away.
He descended under parachute with only his left artificial leg.
Ba landed near Santo.
German soldiers found him lying in a field, remarkably calm given the circumstances.
They took him to Santoare Hospital where doctors examined him.
The hospital staff was astonished to discover he had artificial legs and was missing one.
Word spread quickly through German military channels.
Adolf Galland, whose headquarters was at Stoé airfield, learned that the famous British legless pilot had been captured.
Galland went to meet him.
Their first encounter set the tone for everything that followed.
Galland entered the hospital room expecting a dejected, defeated enemy.
Instead, he found Bada sitting up smoking, demanding to know when he could have his missing leg back so he could attempt to escape.
Galland was impressed.
Here was a warrior, a professional who refused to accept defeat even as a prisoner.
Galland understood that mindset.
He himself had overcome serious injuries earlier in his career and flown combat missions against medical advice.
The two men talked not as captor and prisoner, but as pilots.
They discussed tactics, aircraft performance, specific engagements.
Galland asked about the Spitfire’s advantages.
Bad asked about the BF109’s fuel injection system that gave German fighters an edge in negative G maneuvers.
Then Bad mentioned his missing leg.
Galland immediately offered a solution.
He would contact the RAF through proper channels and request that a replacement prosthetic be dropped during the next British operation over France.
More remarkably, Gallon gave his personal guarantee that German anti-aircraft batteries would not fire on the aircraft delivering it.
This wasn’t mercy.
It was respect between professionals.
Gallen later said he admired any man who could fly combat missions without legs.
The least he could do was ensure Bart had both prosthetics for his time as a prisoner.
The RAF responded positively.
On August 19th, 1941, a British bomber dropped a package containing a replacement artificial leg during a raid over Santo.
German forces collected it and delivered it to Bart.
Gallan visited again.
He brought gifts, a bottle of French wine and cigarettes.
He invited Ba to tour Sento airfield and even allowed him to sit in a BF 109 cockpit while under guard.
Ber with characteristic boldness asked if Galland would let him take it for a test flight.
Gallon smiled and declined.
I fear you would attempt an escape and we would have to chase you and perhaps shoot at you again.
I would prefer not to.
They parted on friendly terms.
B was sent to a prisoner of war camp.
Galland returned to combat operations.
B spent the next four years in various P camps including Stalug Luft 3 where he participated in escape planning.
The Germans eventually sent him to Culitz Castle, a maximum security facility for incourageable prisoners who’d attempted multiple escapes.
On May 1945, Germany surrendered.
Barter was liberated and returned to Britain a hero.
He was promoted to group captain and participated in victory celebrations, including flying in the Victory Day fly past over London.
Adolf Galland also survived the war.
He’d been dismissed from his command position in January 1945 after publicly criticizing Herman Guring’s leadership.
Galland formed Yag Verband 44, an elite unit flying Messid M262 jets in the war’s final months.
He surrendered to American forces in May 1945.
Both men faced postwar challenges.
Bart’s fame meant he was in demand for public appearances and speaking engagements.
He worked for Shell Oil Company and became an advocate for disabled veterans.
He was kned in 1976, becoming Sir Douglas Barter.
Galland faced interrogation by Allied intelligence, then worked in Argentina from 1948 to 1955 as an aviation consultant.
He returned to Germany and established an aviation consultancy business in Bon.
In the late 1950s, as wounds from the war began healing, former adversaries started meeting at aviation events, German and British pilots who tried to kill each other attended reunions together.
In 1959, Galland attended an aviation event in London.
Douglas Barter was there.
18 years had passed since their meeting at Stome.
Neither man had seen the other since 1941.
Their reunion was immediate and warm.
Bart greeted Galland with genuine pleasure.
Galland later recalled feeling relieved.
He hadn’t known if the British would welcome a former enemy, especially one who’d shot down their national hero.
But Ba held no grudges.
He’d been doing his job.
Galland had been doing his.
The war was over.
They were pilots and pilots understood each other in ways outsiders never could.
That meeting rekindled something from 1941.
They exchanged contact information.
They began corresponding.
When Gallen visited Britain, he met with Bart.
When Bart traveled to Germany for events, Galland hosted him.
Their friendship deepened over the years.
They attended air shows together.
They appeared on television programs discussing aerial combat.
They wrote forwards for each other’s memoirs.
B wrote the introduction for Gallon’s book, The First and the Last.
Gallan praised B’s autobiography, Reach for the Sky.
In the 1960s and 1970s, as both men aged, their friendship became wellknown in aviation circles.
They represented something powerful.
Former enemies who’d moved beyond the conflict to recognize shared experiences and mutual respect.
September the 5th, 1982.
Douglas Barter died after suffering a heart attack while driving to a dinner engagement.
He was 72 years old.
The news reached Galland in Germany.
He’d lost not just a former adversary, but a genuine friend.
Galland attended memorial services in Bart’s honor.
He spoke publicly about their friendship, calling Bart one of the bravest men I ever knew.
Galland continued attending aviation events throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
He often spoke about Bart, keeping his friend’s memory alive.
On February 9th, 1996, Adolf Gallon died at his home in Remington, Germany.
He was 83 years old.
He’d outlived BA by nearly 14 years.
At Gallen’s funeral, tributes came from around the world.
Many mentioned his friendship with Douglas Barter as an example of reconciliation between former enemies.
Their friendship had spanned 23 years from their 1959 reunion until Bart’s death in 1982.
But the foundation had been laid 41 years earlier in a hospital room at Stoé when a German commander showed respect to a captured British pilot with no legs.
Douglas Ba and Adolf Gallen’s friendship demonstrates something essential about professional warriors.
The conflict is temporary, but the understanding between them can be permanent.
Bad, for his part, never blamed Gallon personally for shooting him down.
That was war.
Pilots on both sides were doing their jobs.
What mattered was how they treated each other when the shooting stopped.
The friendship also revealed something about both men’s characters.
Butter’s aggressive confidence and refusal to accept limitations made him a difficult prisoner, but also someone Gallon could respect.
Gallen’s willingness to show courtesy to an enemy reflected a code of honor that transcended nationality.
One encounter in 1941 that led to 41 years of mutual respect and 23 years of genuine friendship.
That’s not just a war story.
That’s proof that enemies can choose to become friends.
