I watched the documentary where he ran through his life story and I was quite literally wide eyed. He met and was then introduced to flying by Ernst Udet (no less), visited Berlin as a youngster in 1936 and attended the Olympics, was aboard a carrier which was sunk, was then the only survivor out of an entire lifeboat of men who sadly died of hypothermia, crashed a vampire and kept his legs by virtue of being so short he could pull them up out of the rudder wells (which were ripped away in the crash), interviewed Goering while imprisoned - the list goes on and on, his life reads like a Boy’s Own adventure. Truly an extraordinary man.
This is from memory, please excuse any embellishments.