"C" Flights Drill and Discipline Instructors:
These two were called
"Tweedle Dum & Tweedle Dee", "Pinky & Perky",
plus a lot of names that cannot be printed here.
They are of course Sgt Tom Sparks and Cpl Sam Worrell.
I do not think anyone could
forget these two men. They
gave us hell, as they turned us
from boys into Airmen.
Sgt Tom S. Sparks RAF AIR GUNNER
It is amazing what
you find out about a person 50+ years after you
knew them We all endured the sometimes harsh tasks and punishments during our training,
The following information is produced with
thanks to
Carol and John Edwards the
During the early hours of
Thursday the 22nd of June 1944, B17 Flying
Fortress SR382 (BU.B) of 214 Sqn RAF, Tom and several other crew
members bailed out, before their Fortress became
the above wreck.
He was later
reported as saying that pilot John Cassan and
co-pilot Syd Bryant were wrestling with the
controls After bailing out Sgt
Sparks was given shelter by a Dutch Resistance
group, unfortunately it had unknowingly
but I do not think any of us got to know much about Tom Sparks.
Site administrators of the 214 Squadron website.
http://www.214squadron.org.uk/BU-B_The_full_story.htm
Tom Sparks was one of several crew from Flying Fortress
BU.B to bail out and be taken prisoner of war.
On repatriation in 1945 he continued his RAF
career and was promoted to Flt/Sgt.
He was
probably reduced from Flt Sgt to Sgt, when he remustered to a ground
trade. ( A common practice ).
was shot
down over Holland by a German nightfighter (
a Messerschmitt 110 ), while
returning from
a raid on Germany. Dutch
observers at Bergharen reported the aircraft
crashing in flames at 1.15am.
of the aircraft, attempting to make a
forced landing at the time he bailed out. Giving
rise to the theory that there
may have been
badly wounded on board.
been
infiltrated by the Germans. Put in a van to be
transported to a "safe house" Sgt Sparks found
on reaching
its destination, that instead of
eluding capture, he was surrounded by a dozen or
so German soldiers all pointing rifles at him.
After his capture in Antwerp, Tom was imprisoned in Stalag L7.
As the
Soviet army was advancing on Poland, the Nazis
made the decision to evacuate the PoW camps, to
prevent the
liberation of the prisoners by the Russians.
These evacuations were known as "The Long
March".
There were three main Allied POW evacuation
routes to the west, (North. Central and South)
Tom ended his RAF career as Station
Warrant Officer, at RAF Warton on the Fylde
coast, having
served a total of 27 years. In
1987 he was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer and
died in May 87 - RIP!
To return to the Picture Gallery - Close this page in the normal way