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Those known to have served at RAF Pocklington during the Second World War 1939-1945. The names on this list have been submitted by relatives, friends, neighbours and others who wish to remember them, if you have any names to add or any recollections or photos of those listed,
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Add a Name to this List
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The Wartime Memories Project is the original WW1 and WW2 commemoration website.
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Want to find out more about your relative's service? Want to know what life was like during the War? Our
Library contains an ever growing number diary entries, personal letters and other documents, most transcribed into plain text. |
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Wanted: Digital copies of Group photographs, Scrapbooks, Autograph books, photo albums, newspaper clippings, letters, postcards and ephemera relating to WW2. We would like to obtain digital copies of any documents or photographs relating to WW2 you may have at home. If you have any unwanted
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Did you know? We also have a section on The Great War. and a
Timecapsule to preserve stories from other conflicts for future generations.
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Want to know more about RAF Pocklington? There are:70 items tagged RAF Pocklington available in our Library
These include information on officers, regimental histories, letters, diary entries, personal accounts and information about actions during the Second World War. |
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LAC. William J. Smith 102 Squadron My grandad, William Smith, served mainly at Pocklington from 39-46 and was part of bomber commands ground crew. I found out last year he had never been decorated and I managed to get him his defence and WW2 medal and had a huge presentation day helped by the RAF. I would love to find some people he served with.His health isn't what it was any more and I'd love to do this while he is still with us.
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Sgt. John Dudley 102 Squadron. (d.25th Feb 1943) My late Uncle, Sgt Air Gunner John Dudley, died 25/02/1943 in Halifax DT800 flying from Pocklington to bomb Nuremburg. They crashed at Ardleigh, Essex. Like so many more he needs to be remembered.
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Peter William Brown 102 Squadron My father, Peter William Brown, served with 102 in Halifaxes and, I think, wireless operator at at Pocklington, Yorkshire. His knowledge on wartime radio/ radar equipment was unbelievable. As far as I can remember, as a young lad, was him telling me and my brother about Pocklington, and his training in the Isle of Man, and being at Wing in Buckinghamshire.
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Alan Adams 102 Squadron I am Alan Adams and was a POW at Stalag IVb from December 1943 until the end of the war. I was mid upper gunner on Halifax DY 'R' for Robert. The Rear Gunner Sandy Currie and I were the only survivors. My Squadron was 102 Pocklington.
I am now 88 yrs old. Sandy was several years older than me. Sandy and I were both convinced that we were shot down by a 4 engine plane with British markings as we had reported a plane coming too close. Our theory was that the Germans had put together a plane from parts salvaged from various crashed ones and we had warned our skipper that one aircraft was coming far too close to us for comfort. Of course we were never to fire at 4 engine plane since the Germans did not have any. I have never actually heard if our theories were correct.
Gus Walker was senior officer at that time at Pocklington.
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PO. Kingsley Mountney DFC. 102 (Ceylon) Squadron PO Kingsley Mountney was the pilot of my father's crew flying Halifax aircraft (MkI & MkII) with 102 (Ceylon) Squadron, RAF Pocklington, Yorkshire. They flew together for a full operational tour plus numerous mine laying sorties (which didn't count towards their 30 Ops tour) from June 1943 to January 1944. The remainder of the the crew were:
- Navigator: Sgt R.G. Pharo
- Bomb Aimer: Sgt D. Cullen
- Flight Engineer: Sgt H.D. Proctor
- Wireless Operator & Air Gunner; Sgt H. Bartlett
- Air Gunner: Sgt R. Learmond & Sgt R.L. Dutton
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PO William Henry James 138 Sqd. (d.14th September 1943) Pilot Officer (Pilot) James was the Son of William James, and of Clara Emily James, of Monmouth.
He was 23 when he died and is buried in Grave D IV. 65. 95 in the Korsor Churchyard in Denmark.
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Sgt. Edward lawrence Ball CdeG. 1663 Conversion Unit My father Edward Ball served at at Pocklington and in Algiers (S.O.E.).
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Sgt. Jeffrey Mason 102 Squadron Sergeant Jeff Mason was bomb aimer in Halifax HK173 DY-N, based at Pocklington.
His thirteenth raid became unlucky when his plane was shot down over Lichtenhorst whilst returning home after a raid on Hannover.
Three of the crew sadly died, Flight Sergeant R Ellis, Sergeant T G Palgrave and Sgt. S Williams.
Sergeant Mason baled out through the bomb bay doors, having previously dropped his bombs and survived to be taken prisoner, spending 2 years in Stalag 4b for the remainder of the hostilities.
Freed by the Russians at the end of the war he subsequently became a Baptist Minister at Calstock & Metherill, later Bristol, Coseley (West Midlands), Arnold (Nottingham), Heanor & Ripley (Derbys) and Redditch.
He retired to Devon with his wife and passed away in 2002.
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Thomas "Trouble" Rushton 102 Squadron  Tom Rushton did over 30 ops during his time with bomber command, and survived. He was actually on leave when the dambusters flew having been told to take leave. Other raids he was on were Tirpitze, Pedamunda, Berlin and Cologne, and more.
He flew in Mk1 Halifax’s and on one raid with only three engines working coming back from a raid then only two over the UK based at Pocklington with all New Zealand crew bailed out at five hundred feet into a ploughed field and survived with two broken legs at Barmby Moor. Only three survived all the rest buried at Barmby Moor Church near York.
I visited Scampton a few years ago and went into the shop and bought a souvenir newspaper from the time and my Dad was on the front with his air crew. He started training on Ansons in Canada then Pocklington 102 Squadron then 57 Squadron at East Kirkby then Scampton with 617 Squadron. Finished on HCU.
That’s all I can remember except he got into the caterpillar club pin for bailing out.
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WO. Ernest Desmond "Robbie" Sharp 102 Squadron Ernest Sharp (Robbie) was my Dad. He was born in 1926 and volunteered in 1942, when he would have been called up. He trained in Madley, and was put into Halifaxes as a wireless operator. He started as a sergeant, and had progressed to Warrant Officer by the end of the war. We have a copy of the Rubayat of Omar Kayam, which has his address given as Pocklington.
The Manchester museum of technology has a decorative propeller, which he remembered from the sergeant's mess.
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Sgt. Harold Wigley 405 Squadron My father Harold Wigley was posted to 405 Squadron at RAF Pocklington around May 1941 and I think the squadron was formed to operate from there with Wellingtons and later Halifax Bombers. His logged raids start with a raid on Shwartz on May 12th, Cologne on June 2nd, Brest docks on June 4th, and the Big City on December 15th plus many others that year. He told me a story about a Wellington he was flying that overshot the runway on landing and closed the Hull York Road for a couple of days.
After that he went to Abingdon as an instructor and was then posted to 100 Group Special Duties.
We are only just finding out about that because he told me on a number of occasions that this was still on the secrets restrictions of 75 years, we know he was flying Mosquitos possibly with 169 Squadron at RAF Massingham in Norfolk. He met my mother there and it seems I was conceived somewhere there and later born in Kings Lynn
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Sgt. John Wilton Walsh 77 Squadron      My Dad, John Wilton Walsh was a Sergeant Flight Engineer on Halifax B2s out of Elvington and Pocklington, Yorkshire. On his second trip out to bomb he was shot down by a combination of a radar controlled ground to air type 88 ak-ak gun and a FW190. The original card showing the pick up by the Radar controlled gun to the eventual crash of the plane he was in is still available in the war museum.
With the pilot killed in his seat, my father wound the elevator trim tabs up and down to try and create a shooting position for the upper gun turret operator to get a shot at the FW190 that was sitting just below their tail pumping fire into the tail of the Halifax B2 they were in.
Once it was realised that the whole aircraft was to be lost to fire, the wireless operator, navigator, mid upper gunner and my father decided to bail out.
On arriving at ground level my father, knowing he was over Belgium, made contact with a local resident using his schoolboy French and they decided to hide him. My father was looked after by this Belgian family for three months until the Nazi's were making it too hot for them to hold him any longer.
My father dressed in civvies was taken to a Brussels prison as a spy and interrogated by the SS for three months. A record card of his subsequent treatment exists in the prison records. These records are available via the War Museum and the Philatelist Society UK.
He was then en-trained and sent to Dulag Luft IV, he escaped twice and was caught twice before being sent to Stalag Luft 111 where he became a tunneller.
Having spent some time with his game keeper uncle as a boy and teenager, he was adept at trapping rats and birds to add to his normal daily ration, also due to his years as a border at school, from the age of 7 to 17, he tells me that the regime in the prisons he was in was more lax than his school days in Earls Colne Grammar School!
Dad spent two and half years in the POW camps and had two Christmas's there. I have his Christmas day menu's in his POW log book.
After the enormous march from Stalag Luft 111 in Poland to Germany, where he was liberated and taken home to hospital. He told me of the number of days they marched and I have his map drawn in pencil in his POW log book. He told me about the fact that they had taken the Schmeisser Machine Guns from their guards, only to unload them and give them back to the guards as they entered any new village or town. The German Guards then terrorised the locals into giving their captors food and water, once that had been done the German guards were fed and the march continued with the RAF personnel now in charge of the loaded machine guns.
Dad's trip home was in a USAF Liberator, an ironical name for a plane! After his release from hospital he was sent home, on arrival his mother did not recognise him. He weighed 6 stone 8 when he got home, he was 5' 11" tall and weighed 10 st 4 when he enlisted.
He was well looked after by his mother, a local school head cook. His aunt, the deputy Matron of the well known Middlesex Hospital, and his other aunt, an elocution and English teacher, all of whom lived together in the house my father now returned.
Dad was demobbed some weeks later and little later signed up for further service as a VRT Officer and he finished his service in 1979 having been part of RAF VC10 tanker project.
Subsequently he worked on engineering and calibrating the simulators for the Jaguar and then the Tornado. My father left the service as a Squadron Leader having been a Wing Staff Officer for the ATC for many years.
An account his last two flights over Germany and his escape from his Halifax bomber, can be found in the book, The Bomber Boys.
Until his death in the year 2000 my dad was an active member of the Kriegies Club and other wartime organisations including a lengthy time with the RAF Association organising and working within many charities supporting ex-service personnel.
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