Pilot’s sacrifice not forgotten
Sergeant-Pilot Douglas Owen Stanley’s burial site may be tended by strangers, but they are strangers who care.
Every year on the anniversary of his death, Rita and Peter Jones put flowers on his grave.
The English couple have no connection to Douglas, they just wanted his family to know that people on the other side of the world care and appreciate his sacrifice.
Douglas (inset), who was born in Tirau, served in the Royal New Zealand Air Force and was killed in an aircraft accident at Coleby Grange, Digby, England on October 27 1940, aged 24.
He was killed during a night training exercise while flying a Hawker Hurricane.
On climbing to 500 feet, Douglas began a gentle left hand turn but flew into the ground with the aircraft catching fire. He was pulled from the wreckage but died the following day.
Seventy seven years later Garry Stanley, a cousin to Douglas, read a letter to the editor from a Wellington man who had met Rita and Peter Jones while in England in 2015 and was seeking relatives of the airman whose grave they tended.
Garry was only young when Douglas went to war, but his older brother Don Stanley remembers Douglas well.
He served a carpentry apprenticeship with Garry and Don’s father father.
In many ways Douglas had been making a mark for himself in the community before he left, Don said.
‘‘He’d joined the Waikato Aero Club and learnt to fly and was very keen on Scouts and was at the stage where he was a Rover Scout.
Don was about eight when Douglas went off to England.
His parents William John and Annie Stanley lived in Matamata.
‘‘Shortly after Doug was killed we had been around at their house. William, his father, gave me Doug’s flying goggles that he learnt to fly in and a model aircraft that Doug had built.’’
His death wasn’t spoken about growing up, Don said.
Garry \visited Douglas’ burial site at Scopwick Church Burial Ground, Lincolnshire in 2014.
‘‘We took a poppy to put on his grave. We could tell it was really well kept,’’ Garry said.
‘‘I’ve sent an email and thanked the couple for caring and paying their respects to our relation on the anniversary of his death.’’