Ronald M Wade

Ronald Malcolm Wade (1917–2016) was a Royal Air Force Bomber Command rear gunner with 58 Squadron. He volunteered in December 1939, qualified as a Wireless Operator / Air Gunner in September 1940, and joined his squadron at RAF Linton-on-Ouse in November.

On the night of 15–16 January 1941, his Whitley bomber was hit by marine flak off the Dutch coast. As the aircraft burned, Ron turned back inside the fuselage to clip a parachute onto his navigator, pushed him out, and jumped after him — the last man out of Z6462. He was 23 years old.

For the next four and a half years, Ron was held as a prisoner of war in four German camps, including Stalag Luft III, where he helped dig the first escape tunnels. In the final winter of the war, he was force-marched 500 kilometres west across Germany; on his 28th birthday, his column was strafed by friendly RAF Typhoons.

He was liberated by the British near Lübeck in May 1945, returned to England in a Lancaster bomber, and lived another seventy years. He spoke of the war almost not at all.

Last Man Out is his story, drawn from interviews, family stories, the notebooks his wife Amy kept for their grandchildren, and the papers he stored for seventy years and never showed anyone. Published with the blessing of his family.