Ronald M Wade - Last Man Out: An RAF Rear Gunner's True Story of Fire, Wire, and the Long W | Paperback 1

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Ronald M Wade - Last Man Out: An RAF Rear Gunner's True Story of Fire, Wire, and the Long W | Paperback

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by Ronald M Wade

Ronald M Wade - Last Man Out: An RAF Rear Gunner's True Story of Fire, Wire, and the Long W | Paperback

Regulärer Preis: £16.16
Verkaufspreis: £16.16
Regulärer Preis

This is the gripping, true account of Sergeant Ron Wade, an RAF Rear Gunner who faced an impossible choice on the night of January 16, 1941, over the Dutch coast. When his Whitley bomber caught fire, Wade had seven seconds to decide between his own survival and that of his navigator, who was unable to secure his parachute. Discover the harrowing four and a half years that followed this defining moment, detailing survival through four German prison camps, a brutal 500 km forced winter march, and a difficult return home.

Key Features/Benefits

True story of RAF Bomber Command service during World War II.
Details survival in four German prison camps, including Stalag Luft III.
Recounts the 500 km forced winter march of 1945 where many perished.
Explores the challenges of returning home, including being stripped of earned rank by the Air Ministry.
Offers insight into the seven-second decision that saved a navigator's life.

Specifications

Author: Ronald M Wade
Format: Paperback
Language: English
Publication Date: May 25, 2026
Publisher: Independently published
Print Length: 152 pages
ISBN-13: 979-8198537484
Dimensions: 152x9x229mm (or 15.24 x 0.89 x 22.86 cm)
Item Weight: 286 g
Best Sellers Rank: #1 in Aviation History

Content Highlights

Inside this narrative, readers will experience:

The critical moment aboard burning Whitley Z6462.
Life inside Stalag Luft III, including involvement in early tunnel efforts.
The horrors of the Long March, facing dysentery and SS troops shooting stragglers.
An account of an accidental friendly fire incident on April 15, 1945.
The post-war demotion from Warrant Officer by the Air Ministry.

This book provides a vital, firsthand perspective on the courage and endurance required by the 9,838 men taken prisoner by Bomber Command during WWII.

EAN: 9798198537484

Release Date: 2026-05-25

From the Manufacturer

His life. Or the man beside him.

A burning Whitley bomber over the Dutch coast, January 1941. The port engine on fire. The aircraft slipping and losing altitude. The North Sea five minutes below. Sergeant Ron Wade, twenty-three years old, the rear gunner, was crouched at the open fuselage door with his parachute on, about to jump. Then he saw the navigator coming up the fuselage, dragging his harness — unable to clip it on as the plane slewed. The silk in Ron's own chute was already catching the flames. He had seven seconds before the aircraft hit the water. He turned back. He zipped the navigator's harness shut, pushed him out, and jumped after him. He was the last man out of Z6462.

Text reads "SEVEN SECONDS TO CHOOSE". Dramatic action scene featuring figure engulfed in flames with fiery effects against dark stormy background.

The last voices of Bomber Command are leaving us.

125,000 men flew with RAF Bomber Command in the Second World War. 55,573 were killed. 9,838 were taken prisoner. Ron was one of the 9,838. What came next was harder than the falling aircraft: four German prison camps, four and a half years of cold and hunger, a 500-kilometre forced march in the winter of 1945 that killed men by the hundred. He came home half-deaf with a fractured skull, his weight halved, his parents unable to recognise him at the station. He never spoke of it. He died in 2016, aged 99, with a small gold parachute brooch pinned to his chest. The men who flew Whitleys over Europe in 1941 will not be here for much longer. Their stories will leave with them.

What real courage looks like, told by a man who lived it.

You will be in the burning cockpit on the night of 16 January 1941. In the tunnel at Stalag Luft III, with sand falling around you and the ceiling threatening to collapse. In a solitary cell in Lithuania, five feet by three feet, walls running with water, one slice of black bread a day. On the Long March of 1945, 500 kilometres on foot in bitter winter, with dysentery, raw horsemeat, and SS troops shooting stragglers from behind. By the last page you will have stood somewhere almost no living person can take you anymore. You will know what real British courage looked like — the kind that turns back for the man beside you, the kind that organises a rota to carry failing prisoners to safety, the kind that comes home and says nothing.

The story he never told. Until now.

Drawn from historical documents and a spiral-bound notebook his wife Amy filled in pencil for their grandchildren. Leaning into the handwritten autobiographical pages Ron kept in a folder beside his armchair. From the photographs, letters and press cuttings he stored for seventy years and never showed anyone. Decades after the war, Ron sat with a copy of The Whitley Boys and turned to the loss tables for April 1945. He found the entry for a friend killed by friendly fire on the Long March — on Ron's own 28th birthday. Beside the name, in unsteady blue biro, he wrote four words. I was a lucky one. The whole book is the story of why.

Text reads 'IN HIS OWN HAND'. Image shows man in dark clothing and handwritten letter or document on aged paper.

Order Last Man Out today.

A Master Grocer's son from the Potteries who left school at fourteen, joined the RAF at twenty-two, flew, fell, walked, and came back. He was awarded five medals, the Caterpillar Club brooch given only to airmen whose lives were saved by a parachute, and a quiet post-war demotion the RAF never properly explained. He never told the story himself. He said almost nothing about the war for the rest of his life. At the two worst moments of his war, Ron turned back for the men beside him. The least we can do is turn back for him. Order Last Man Out today, while there are still men like Ron to remember — and put his story on a shelf where your children, and theirs, can find it.

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Ronald M Wade - Last Man Out: An RAF Rear Gunner's True Story of Fire, Wire, and the Long W | Paperback

Ronald M Wade - Last Man Out: An RAF Rear Gunner's True Story of Fire, Wire, and the Long W | Paperback