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Britain : Search resumes for Bader's Spitfire

Saturday 18 May 1996 18:02 EDT
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Dilip Sarker, the policeman who thought he had found the Spitfire flown by Battle of Britain hero Douglas Bader, has vowed to continue his search after tests showed it was not Bader's plane. "It has to be within a five-mile radius of where we searched," he said.

It was on 9 August 1941 that Bader collided with an enemy plane over Bethune in France. He bailed out and parachuted to safety, leaving one of his artificial legs in the cockpit. Sarker was guided in his last expedition by a French pensioner who was convinced he had seen Bader's plane go down. "In the 55 years since then," he said, "his memory has become confused as to the exact crash site."

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