There is the Obituary in today's Telegraph of 95 year old Flight Lieutenant Edward E Stocker DSO DFC CEng, MIMech E.
Ted Stocker, flight engineer ? obituary
A WWII Bomber Command Lancaster Flt Eng. who flew 102 operations with the heavy bomber force over occupied Europe. He was the only flight engineer to be awarded the D.S.O.
Citation
Acting Flight Lieutenant Edward Ernest STOCKER,
D.F.C. (50954), R.A.F., 582 Sqn.
This officer continues to display a high degree
of skill and courage in air operations. He has
participated in a hundred sorties, most of which
have been against targets in Germany. His skilful
and resolute work has been largely responsible for
the many successes obtained. His example has
been of a high order.
https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/...supplement/930
BBC - WW2 People's War - No.8 PFF Group - Mr. Edward 'Ted' Stocker DSO
Flight Lieutenant Edward E Stocker DSO DFC CEng, MIMech E
Served as a Flight Engineer and flew a massive 108 operations as Flight Engineer on Lancasters of No 35 Pathfinder Squadron. He ended up on No 582 Sqn having been previously on No’s 7 and 35 Squadrons both Pathfinders and before that with No’s 102 and 35 Squadrons in No.4 Group.
He started out in Evanton in Scotland on an Air Gunners Course because when they started there as there were no training courses for Flight Engineers.
'You had to have an engine fitter’s qualification first. Then you learnt to be an Air Gunner, God knows why but we did. There were twelve of us on the course, 10 are dead, one’s blind and there’s me. So as I say, it’s survival that was the name of the game. You stayed alive you got the gongs!'
The last Operation they did was Operation Manna dropping the food for the Dutch in Rotterdam. They did some of those from Little Staughton. And then they started bringing home the Prisoners of War. He had done one to France bringing home Prisoners of War just before the 6th of May 1945. The 5th he doesn't remember doing anything but on the 8th which was the day actually when they were calling it VE Day No 582 Sqn provided one of Master Bomber aircraft because their Master Bomber aircraft had better radio equipment than the others.
He had a serviceable motorbike and he put that in the back of a Lancaster and they went to Lübeck on the 8th of May and sat on the end of the runway acting as air traffic control all through the day while Bomber Command was sending planes picking up POWs and flying them back.
'We were the first in, in the morning and when the last Lancaster left in the evening they stopped acting as Air Traffic Control, picked up their quota of POWs and they flew back. Not to Little Staughton, they had to take them somewhere else so they took them there and by the time they had done that it was dark. They then had the privilege of flying back over England on the evening of VE Day when all the bonfires were lit and all over the country there were all these bonfires, it was a magnificent sight!
He didn’t actually get a drink because his log book says that we didn’t land until the morning of the 9th which was probably sometime after midnight. He was doing Squadron Ops Officer at the time and he went down to the Ops Room to find out what was on the next day and what we were required to provide. Everybody had left to Cambridge! London! No Squadron Commander, no Station Commander! He recalls there were a couple of Flight Commanders of ours.
Early on the morning of the 9th he tried to rustle up a few crews to go over the next day to bring some more POWs back. But he did get a drink sometime early on the morning of the 9th as the girls in the telephone exchange found a bottle of gin that had something left in the bottom. He had a very tiny tot of gin on the morning of the 9th. That was his VE Day!”
Pathfinder's War: An Extraordinary Tale of Surviving Over 100 Bomber Operations Against All Odds Hardcover – August 19, 2009
by Ted Stocker (Author), Sean Feast