An interesting auction is being planned in Boston, Lincolnshire. Local auction house Eleys will put on sale a collection of personal items of the late G/Cpt Douglas Bader.

Douglas Bader was arguably the best known and celebrated of all RAF fighter pilots of the early war period, and gained fame as an inspirational leader, not least because he flew and fought despite having lost both his legs in a pre-war accident. He died of heart attack on September 5, 1982, at the age of 72.

The items put on auction belong to a private collector in the UK. The largest and most prized item will undoubtedly be Bader's Alvis Car of 1960, complete with a Spitfire emblem on the bonnet, for which the asking price is no less than £160,000.

For a collector familiar with the life and career of Douglas Bader the lots list includes even more interesting items, such as a piece of silver-doped fabric from the Bristol Bulldog in which Bader crashed and lost his legs on 14 December 1931. There is also one of his prosthetic legs. Later items include parcels that Bader received in German POW camp in Colditz.

See the entire lots list

No date of the auction is given at the time of this writing.

Labels: history