Squadron Leader Anthony Orlando ‘Oscar’ Bridgman, DFC (4 June 1915 - 14 January 2006) was a bomber pilot of the Royal Air Force during the Second World War. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in 1940, and, during internment as a prisoner of war at Stalag Luft III, was a contributor in The Wooden Horse escape.
Early life and education
Bridgman was born on June 4, 1915, in North Stoke, Somerset, in the parish of Keynsham, spending the first five years of his life in Munnar, Southern India, where his father managed a tea plantation. He returned to England to be educated at Magdalen College School, Oxford, where he pursued his interest in aviation and learned to fly, remaining there until he was eighteen. Bridgman joined the Royal Air Force in 1934 at age nineteen, based at RAF Thornaby in North Yorkshire.
RAF Service
On March 23, 1936, Bridgman was granted a service commission as Acting Pilot Officer On Probation. On January 27, 1937, he was commissioned as a Pilot Officer and posted to No. 2 Group, Bomber Command, and subsequently sent to No. 83 Squadron, a day bomber unit equipped with Hawker Hinds, at Turnhouse near Edinburgh. Declining to reveal his middle name as Orlando, he adopted the phonetic initial ‘Oscar’ which became his adopted nickname and by which he was known throughout his service years. His cadre of fellow junior officers at Turnhouse included James Pitcairn-Hill and John Collier, to be joined in September 1937 by Guy Gibson who was assigned into Bridgman’s care and tutelage, and would eventually become one of the most decorated World War Two British pilots. Squadron Leader Leonard Snaith, formerly of the winning 1931 Schneider Trophy Team, joined the squadron in June 1937 as Commanding Officer.
In March 1938, No. 83 Squadron moved to RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire as part of No. 5 Group, Bomber Command, sharing Scampton with No. 49 Squadron. In May of the same year, Bridgman was made Acting Flying Officer and in August was promoted to the rank of Flying Officer and Acting Flight Commander of A Flight. Subsequently, No. 83 Squadron was re-equipped with the new Handley-Page Hampden, a fast, twin engine, monoplane medium bomber carrying a crew of four, dubbed 'The Flying Suitcase' for its cramped interior.
World War II
In December 1939, three months after the outbreak of the Second World War, Bridgman was promoted to the rank of Flight Lieutenant and also Flight Commander of A Flight. No. 83 Squadron were to become specialists in low-altitude, precision bombing referred to as "gardening" – laying mines in various seaways and harbour entrances. With the German invasion of Denmark and Norway in April 1940, No. 83 Squadron started mining Baltic approaches to Kiel and harbour entrances on the Danish Coast to disrupt enemy shipping.
Distinguished Flying Cross
Returning from a mining mission over the entrance to the Skagerrak Strait on the night of April 17/18 1940, Bridgman and Australian Flying Officer Ellis Henry Ross in a second Hampden performed a reconnaissance flight over the newly established Aalborg aerodrome. Aalborg was an important hub ferrying troops and supplies into Denmark and Norway. A subsequent bombing mission on the night of April 20/21 was executed with success by the two crews, with Bridgman, Ross, and their respective navigators awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Capture
By 1940 Berlin had become a recognised target by Bomber Command as the Germans were bombing London. On the night of September 23/24 1940, a force of over 200 RAF bombers was sent to raid Berlin. Eleven of those aircraft were the Hampdens of No. 83 Squadron, led by Bridgman.
Flying Hampden L4049, code letters OL-A, Bridgman executed the attack; however, one 500 lb bomb failed to leave the aircraft. As they passed to the South-west of Bremen, more than halfway back to the German coast and on a direct route home, the Hampden was found by German searchlights and anti-aircraft fire and subsequently crippled. With one engine damaged the aircraft was hit again and the order given to bail out. The Hampden crashed in a field behind a barn near Bethen, Niedersachsen, Germany.
Bridgman, as the only survivor, was captured and sent to the Dulag Luft at Oberursel, a holding centre for new prisoners of war (POW), and within a month, to Oflag IX-A at Spangenberg Castle to begin life as a POW, transferring from camp to camp throughout the duration of the war.