STANLEY BOOKER, MBE, Legion d’Honneur -
100th Birthday
Stanley Booker in 1943
Stanley Booker was 100 years old on 25 April 2022 and is now the last survivor of a group of 168 Allied Airmen, who were captured in 1944 by the Gestapo and incarcerated in the notorious Buchenwald concentration camp, Weimar, Germany. The experiences which he and his fellow airmen endured during WW2 have remained with him long after.
A 10 Squadron Halifax bomber MZ 630 was shot down over France some 50 kms west of Paris on the night of 2/3 June 1944. Its pilot Fg Off ‘Sandy’ Murray (23) and the wireless operator, WO ‘Taffy’ Williams (25) were both killed in the crash and were later buried by the Luftwaffe on 7 June 1944 at St Andre de L’Eure.
The crew’s navigator Fg Off Stanley Booker, and the other survivors were hidden for several weeks by the local Resistance in the village of Illiers l’Eveque but Stanley was to be betrayed to the Gestapo by a double agent. He was then treated as a spy and made a political prisoner: thus being denied protection under the Geneva Convention for the treatment of Prisoners of War.
After being held and interrogated for five days in the infamous Fresnes prison in Paris, he then underwent the ordeal of being transported some 450 miles away in a convoy of cattle trucks, to the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar in Germany. He was accompanied by some 168 other Allied airmen and 2,000 French Resistance prisoners: all being deported on the last train out of Paris on 15 August 1944, just a few days before the city was liberated by the Allies.
Stanley later wrote a very detailed account of his experiences in his autobiography entitled, ‘Destination Buchenwald —The RAF in Buchenwald’, which also includes the post war challenges he faced adjusting to the effects of physical and mental trauma.
He was awarded the French Legion d'Honneur award in January 2021, as reported earlier here: Legion d'Honneur
*****
Stanley's 100th birthday on 25th April was spent at his home in Bracknell, Berkshire with his family.
On the 26th April, the day after, Stanley was visited by members of the present-day Squadron from RAF Brize Norton to offer their congratulations as well. Representing, 10 Squadron’s commanding officer, Wing Commander Tim Rushworth, was the Squadron’s Executive Officer (XO) Squadron Leader Craig Harvey who was accompanied by Flight Lieutenant Mark Lawton and Senior Aircraftman Ashley Davis.
During the visit, the 10 Sqn members presented Stanley with a signed print of a Squadron Voyager aircraft with the Squadron badge. In addition to being a birthday gift this was also to recognise Sqn Ldr Booker’s long-standing and devoted efforts to gain recognition for those like himself, who had been interrogated by the Gestapo during WW2 and later illegally imprisoned in the notorious Buchenwald concentration camp instead of being sent to a ‘normal’ PoW camp.
All wish Stanley many more years to come.
Sqn Ldr Stanley Booker, MBE, Legion d'Honneur
(centenarian)