I am Squadron Leader Stanley Davis MBE RAF and I was born on 8th June 1943. My parents, Leonard and Connie Davis, were reticent talking about themselves and their past, to their children. I knew at a young age from my family tree that I had a cousin, Flt/Sgt Stanley Davis WOp/Ag. Stanley had been lost over the sea whilst returning from a bombing mission. I blindly assumed that the raid had been over Germany and that his aircraft came down in the North Sea.
How wrong I was. I eventually joined the RAF in June 1965 and my first posting was to 1 Group Bomber Command, Bawtry during the V bomber era and the Cold War. After a couple of years, I was accepted for Airman Aircrew (AEOp) training and was posted to RAF Topcliffe. On graduation, I was posted to RAF St Mawgan for conversion training on the maritime Shackletons and eventually to 120 Squadron RAF Kinloss in August 1969.
On my first day, I was assigned to a crew on 2nd SAR (Search and Rescue) which was a 4 hour standby done from home; this also doubled as the Operational Standby crew. At about 2100hrs there was a knock on my door and I was told to pack a bag and to get a move on as we were called out and would be deploying; location unknown. We were bundled in to a Hercules and eventually found ourselves disembarking at Oerland at the mouth of Trondheim Fiord in Central Norway. My first operational mission was on 29th August 1969 out of Oerland against a Russian submarine tender escorting 6 Foxtrot class submarines.
My second was two days later on the same mission but landing back at homebase, Kinloss. During this mission, we spent a time patrolling between the Orkneys, Shetland islands and around Fair Isle. My first and second missions in an aircraft on which I was qualified as a radio operator and air gunner as well as a radar operator. I must have flown a few hundreds of my 10,000 flying hours in both Maritime Shackletons, Nimrod MR1s and AEW Shackletons over this same patch of water.
Many years later at the RAF Waddington Air Show I was browsing the bookstalls and found a book of Bomber Command losses in 1942 which I took home to do some research. Sure enough, there was my cousin Flt/Sgt Stanley Davis WOp/Ag on the night of 30/31 March 1942. He was on 76 Sqn based at Middleton St George flying Halifax II aircraft. He was flying R9453 MP-K with a mixed Commonwealth crew captained by a New Zealander Sqn Ldr A P Burdett https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/203813/ on operation Tirpitz up on Faettenfjord inside Tronheim Ffjord. 76 Squadron along with 10 and 35 squadrons moved forward bases around the Moray Firth, to mount the mission. The aircraft were due to be over target between 2145 and 2230hrs. The mission failed due to lack of visibility, sea fog and 8/8 low cloud. Several of the aircraft jettisoned their loads; 6 of the 34 aircraft failed to return to base.
R9453 MP-K was last heard of with a radio report passing over Sumburgh Head at 0210hrs and is believed to have ditched in the sea very soon after. It is not known whether this was due to battle damage, engine failure or running out of fuel. An extensive search was mounted by two RN destroyers and some twenty aircraft but no trace was found. The Burdett’s body was washed up on Shetland and buried in Lerwick New Cemetery in September 1942. The remainder of the crew are remembered on the Runnymede Memorial, Surrey.
Ironic that I joined the RAF as an AEOp, the equivalent of my cousin and spent many hours patrolling the area where he was lost.
I was the first child born in the family after Stanley’s death. One of his sisters, Betty, remembered my father phoning her mother, Harriet, asking if I could be named after him.
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