War Heroes (D.Bader and A.Mareseyev) .The article from "Speak out".
статья по английскому языку (8 класс) по теме

War Heroes

What do Douglas Bader and Aleksei Mareseyev have in common ?

Both were Second World War Heroes who fought …without legs.

Douglas Bader is one the best known war heroes in Britain. Douglas was born in England in 1910. His father was a major in the British Army in the First World War. In 1922, when Douglas was only 12, his father died. Traditionally, British Army officers were from the upper middle class families and educated their children in public schools. However, public schools are expensive and with the loss of his father's income, private education became impossible for Douglas. He 'saved' the day by winning a sports scholarship to St Edward's School in Oxford. When Douglas was 18, he won a cadetship to Cranwell Air Force Academy. The young man fell in love with flying almost immediately and started flying solo after only six and a half hours of training. He quickly became one of the best young pilots in the Academy. By 1931, Bader's career as a pilot was going extremely well. Then the tragedy struck. Douglas crashed while performing a complex aerobatic display. Although he was lucky to survive, he lost both legs. It seemed that his flying career was over. But Douglas insisted: 'They'll have to call me up.'

Douglas was right. When Britain declared war on Germany in 1939, the country quickly became short of fighter pilots (the lifespan of a pilot in the Second World War was very short). Bader was given a second chance. He learnt to fly with prosthetic legs. By 1941, he had shot down 23 German planes — the fifth highest hit record in the Royal Air Force at the time.  But fate tried Bader once again. In 1941, he was shot down and captured by the Nazis. He was sent from prison to prison before ending up in the Colditz prison in Germany. Douglas made several attempts to escape and in the end the Nazis had to take his tin legs away to stop him from escaping. So Bader had to wait until the end of the war to return to Britain.

After the war, Douglas dedicated his life to helping charities for the disabled. In 1976, he was knighted for his heroism and outstanding charity work. Douglas Bader died in1982as a British national hero. But his story lives on. As well as Bader’s own autobiography a number of books and a film have been produced in his honour.

 Students can find /should find (should be grateful to heroes, ordinary people who risked their lives and contributed a lot into the victory to live in peace) information about A. Mareseyev  in the Internet ( in some sources of  inform. they write Mereseyev) www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0Ur3_ja8ng. , watch a film, read a book by B.Polevoy  (Б.Полевой «Повесть о настоящем человеке»- “The novel/the story about real man/person” . (It is not easy to translate correctly , because the word novel in English has difference in  meaning from the Russian новелла (итал.)novella. I would translate   “The novel about the Real Person” ).