´óÏó´«Ã½

Sgt. Stanley Hathaway R.A.F 1338742
161 Squadron (Special Duties)

On the night of 22nd July, 1943 Stan joined the crew of Halifax DK119, 161 squadron and took off from RAF Tempsford in Bedfordshire on a mission to drop desperately needed supplies to the French resistance. Stan, just 20 years old and due on leave the next day was asked to take the place of a navigator that had fallen ill. Because the weather was so bad that night, their four-engine bomber was to be the only allied plane to leave Britain for Europe.
The first two consignments were successfully dispatched, but no signal was received for the third target drop zone at St. Sauvier. The plane flew over the area twice without seeing any lights. The weather was extremely bad, thunderstorms and heavy rain. On the third run in, signal lights were spotted and the remaining supply containers were dropped. The aircraft was flying very low and on turning to gain height an engine stalled and the plane crashed on the edge of a wooded area. Unfortunately the rear gunner, Sgt. Lavallee was killed, but through the aid of the local French resistance five of the crew did escape (Sergeants Crome, Paulin, Hunter, Patterson and Kanakos). Stan and the nose gunner Sgt. Allen were both badly injured. Stan could not be moved although he was fully conscious at the time and persuaded the resistance to destroy as much evidence and equipment in the wrecked aircraft as possible. There was a certain amount of panic at the time because the containers had been emptied and the supplies taken away, but the empty containers had been thrown into a nearby lake and were floating so they had to be recovered and better disposed of before the Germans arrived on the scene.
Stan was seriously injured with head wounds, a dislocated hip and several pieces of wreckage embedded in his legs. One of the resistance women sat with Stan until the Genderarm (French police) arrived to take him to Montlucon, from there the Luftwaffe (German airforce) took him to a hospital in Clairemont Ferrand.
When he was fitter, Stan was transported on a stretcher by train to a hospital in Germany, Obermassfeld, then onto a prisoner of war camp.

Stan was a P.O.W at Heydekrug, Throme in Poland and then Fallingbostel until April 1945 when the Germans marched the prisoners south in an attempt to reach Poland and use them as hostages. During this forced march, the column of prisoners, were often mistaken by allied aircraft for German infantry. Then one day they were attacked by RAF Typhoon fighter-bombers, firing rockets. One of Stan’s most horrific memories of this time was of a strongly built Canadian nicknamed ‘Tiny’ who, ran out waving his white shirt in an attempt to signal the attacking aircraft but he took a direct hit and in was ‘blown to bits’.
Stan, his friend Mac and another prisoner later managed to escape the column at a bend in the road. They even succeeded to evade the patrolling guard dogs. After about a week on the run, hiding up by day in forests and moving by night, they arrived in an area near to where the British Army were fighting and they were finally picked up by the 7th Hussars near the river Weser. Stan arrived back home in England at the end of April in time for his 22nd birthday in May.

All five members of Stan crew arrived safely back in England after evading capture for about four months. It is uncertain what happened to Sgt. Allen but it is believed he died of his wounds in hospital.
Sgt. Lavallee was a French Canadian, and by some strange coincidence, whose mother had been born in St. Sauvier and his grandmother was still living in the village at the time of the crash. A local historian Rene Chambereau had put advertisements in the RAF Association Magazine to trace members of the crashed plane to build up the history, and Stan contacted Rene in time for a memorial service in 1994. A memorial was built in honour of Sgt. Lavallee, quite close to the crash site and is a focal point in the village for the past history of the resistance members.
Stan was invited back to St.Sauvier again this year as guest of honour and to help mark the 60th anniversary of Liberation of France.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.