RAYMOND GEORGE PARKE
Royal Air Force Flight Engineer
22 April 1925 to 12 January 2025
Ray, as he preferred to be known, joined the RAF when 18, having previously served in Civil Defence. He visited his local recruitment office, Norwich presumably, and applied to be an Air Gunner. This was rejected as he was too large, he weighed 18 St at the time, so they moved him along to the next desk, Flight Engineer.
He had little or no engineering training. The recruiter handed him a Cotter Pin and asked him what it was, and describe what it is used for. Ray answered all of this correctly and was sent down the Flight Engineer corridor!
This clearly had a lasting effect on him and he got hold of 4 of these, had them on a safety pin for all of the 40 bombing missions he crewed in. I was fortunate to be presented one of these, here is it now.
Another was given to his friend Fraser Gambling, it was he who approached us in the FEAEA at Ray’s request, more involving him later. I made an identical presentation housing for his one too.
He and his crew, flew Lancasters on bombing missions throughout WW2, in all 40 missions, they must have been a lucky crew to survive that number of missions.
His Bomb Aimer/Navigator wrote a book, I have a copy, entitled “The Eighth Passenger” by Miles Tripp. It is a very interesting and, I think, accurate description of the crew’s whole time together for these 40 missions. If interested in getting a copy, World of Books have several.
After the war he became an instructor at the then RAF Silverstone, teaching propellors. When Nick and I met with Ray, we instantly realised this was a very sharp person indeed, and a far better memory than mine. We teased him a little to test this memory, so I asked him if he remembered what CTM was relative to propellors. Instant reply, centrifugal twisting moment!!. This started a whole lot of prop theory reminiscences!
We met with Ray back in August 2024, he had reserved a room in his, excellent, care home. The Warren in Spixworth a suburb of Norwich, and had laid out all of his memorabilia, it was a lovely meeting, one he too, clearly enjoyed.
We had limited time, so we promised him that we’d take him out for lunch in November 24, when we were all free. All planned, then he had to cancel for a hospital appointment. Several other attempts were made culminating in one for 6 Jan this year. On the 5th, on return from another hospital trip, he decided to tidy his room. In the process, he suffered a fall which broke part of his spine. He was treated in hospital but sadly died of the injury on the 12th.
Fraser Gambling has been mentioned in here and he was the friend who met Ray and has a close friend for 5 years. Somehow Ray, or perhaps, Fraser, found out about the FEAEA and an approach was made to us to have him become a member. He duly became an honorary member, which he was very pleased about.
Today (25 Feb) was his funeral, in Norwich. Moose, Nick and myself were present at this very well attended event. Ray had met with the King at BBMF and, somehow the King heard of his passing so the Lord Lieutenant of Norfolk was present as were the present and previous Station Commanders of RAF Marham, as an example. The local RAFA did a splendid job of all the ceremonial duties, I’d guess at circa 100 were present.
As Fraser had done so much for Ray, I made him this commemorative plaque, it even has aluminium rivets as per the Lanc!
The poem on it is, more completely than on here (I didn’t have the full version when making this), so here it is as an ending now…Ray wanted this to be read at his funeral, as, indeed , it was.
Ian Harvey, 25 February 2025