What I STILL can’t get my head round is: My Mum told me that there was NOTHING in the coffin except sand but the eyewitness said that he saw BODIES on the ground. SO could my uncle’s body have been in the coffin but Mum and Dad never knew that, is that possible please would you know?

Yes, Stan is buried in Hornchurch cemetery under a CWGC headstone. He is also remembered on the British Legion war memorial there. In 2013 I had his name read out the first on the remembrance day parade.

Do you know if Stan was ever at Hornchurch aerodrome please as that is very close to where he lived?

AND it was dark when they were flying, but surely the RAF would have known that the parachutes would get in the way wouldn’t they.

I have just tried looking over something as though it was a parachute and you can’t see much round it!! In the dark they MIGHT have mistaken the readings and misjudged where they were don’t you think?

I THINK that I remember Mum saying that the RAF didn’t come to the funeral, would this be true? She told me that they were too busy.

I understand the censorship was there.

Would the RAF have come to tell his mother that Stan had died or would they have sent a telegram to tell the family please?

So, as it burnt Lyneal Wood down would there be some sort of report of it in a newspaper please? If I am correct in assuming this, which newspaper would it be in please?

That came from someone on the general enquiries bit of this website!!

Coming back to what Mum and Dad told me about there being not a body in the coffin, would the RAF REALLY have told them that? Wouldn’t that have just upset them, they told me that Stan was blown up into little pieces and they could only find little bits of him to put into the coffin. Why would the RAF say such a thing to people who have just been bereaved? I don’t understand why the RAF said that to his Mother?