Sqdn. Ldr. Douglas Bader's Hawker Hurricane--single figure and plane
$339.00

King & Country

Item Number: RAF093

Sqdn. Ldr. Douglas Bader's Hawker Hurricane

Douglas Bader DSO & Bar, DFC & Bar (1910-1982) was a Royal Air Force flying ace during WWII.  He was credited with 22 aerial victories, four 'shared' victories, six 'probables', and 11 enemy aircraft 'damaged'.
He joined the RAF in 1928 and was commissioned in 1930.  In December 1931, while attempting a low-flying aerobatic stunt, he crashed his Bristol Bulldog biplane and lost the lower parts of both legs. Despite being on the brink of death, he recovered and retook his flight training and passed all of his flight checks; however, the RAF still retired him on medical grounds.
Upon the outbreak of war in September 1939, Bader immediately reapplied to the RAF to rejoin and, after some difficulties, was accepted for operational flying duties as a fighter pilot.
He scored his first 'victories' while flying over Dunkirk during the Battle of France in 1940.  He then took part in the Battle of Britain, being promoted to Squadron Leader and put in command of No. 242 Squadron of RAF Fighter Command, a unit made up of mostly Canadian pilots.
In August 1941, Bader's aircraft was in collision with an enemy Messerschmitt 109 and he had to bale out over occupied France, and was soon captured.
It was then he met for the first time and was befriended by the prominent German air ace, Adolf Galland.  After being 'wined and dined' by his Luftwaffe captors at their airfield, he was sent to the first of several Prisoner of War camps, where, despite his disability, he made a number of failed escape attempts.
Eventually he was sent to the 'bad boys' camp at the infamous Colditz Castle, where he remained until liberation by the U.S Army in April 1945.
Douglas Bader left the RAF in early 1946 and resumed a flying career in private industry with the giant Shell BP company.  During the 1950s, a best-selling biography and a block-busting film, 'REACH FOR THE SKY' were released and were great successes.
For the rest of his life, Bader campaigned for disabled people, especially the young.  In 1976, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his many years of service.  He also continued to fly until ill health forced him to stop in 1979. 

Sir Douglas Bader passed away in 1982.

‘Hurricane Summer’  

By June 1940, Britain was in a perilous situation.  France had fallen… the British Army, or at least a large part of it, had escaped, by the skin of its teeth, back from Dunkirk, having left behind almost all of its transport, armour, and artillery behind.    Virtually the whole of Western Europe, from northern Norway down to the southern borders between France and Spain, now lay under the Nazi jackboot!  Britain’s stood defiantly alone.  

Hitler and his generals now looked across the English Channel and began to plan an invasion to which they gave the name… ‘Operation Sealion’.  At the same time they recognized that two major obstacles stood in their way – The Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force.  At the time, Britain possessed the largest and most powerful navy in the world… definitely a hard nut to crack!  

The British Air Force, by comparison, was much smaller and had already suffered at the hands of the Luftwaffe in France.  

Hitler’s Luftwaffe chief, Reichsmarschal Herman Goering, confidently assured the Fuhrer that his all-conquering fighter pilots and bomber crews could and would ‘sweep the Royal Air Force from the skies’ in just a few weeks, before turning their full attention towards the British fleet.  

What Goering and his Luftwaffe failed to understand was that Britain possessed a growing band of fighter pilots from all over its small island and many others from around its far-flung Empire and elsewhere.  

The British also had two superb modern, mono wing fighter aircraft that became legendary:  The swift, sleek ‘Supermarine Spitfire’ and the rugged, hard-working ‘Hawker Hurricane’.  

The Hawker Hurricane has long been a favourite of K&C Royal Air Force collectors.  

Over the years, we have produced no less than four different versions of this classic British ‘Warbird’ in mixed-media (polystone, resin and white metal) as well as a number of all-wood, hand-painted special edition Hurricanes for individual collectors.

These two latest mixed-media Hawker Hurricanes are both brand-new sculpts with much more detail and painted to represent two different, but equally famous aircraft, flown by two of the best known RAF ‘aces’ of The Battle of Britain:  Squadron Leaders Douglas Bader and Robert Stanford-Tuck.

This new Hawker Hurricane includes a standing pilot representing the actual flyer of the aircraft.  In addition, this model comes in a handsome, full-colour presentation box with just 200 pieces of aircraft being produced.

Due to be released in JANUARY 2025.